Quilt of Valor Under the Needle

My Quilt of Valor is coming along nicely.  I WAS able to get more of my dark blue fabric for framing in the quilt center.  SO happy about that!  It looks great.  The quilt top is finished now:

There was a problem when it came to PINNING the quilt, however.  I have arthritis now in my hip, and it has become problematic and painful.  I have a cane to help me get around, but I am unable to get down on the floor to tape and pin a quilt as I have always done in the past for each and every one of my quilts.  SO!  How do I make the quilt sandwich???  I have heard that you can tape smaller projects to a table, but this quilt is rather large  (62" x 80").  Pin half at a time?  I gave that a try.

I laid it out on the design board, all 3 layers, pinned in a few spots and then took it over to my work table.  I used fusible batting, so it stuck together fairly well in that transition, and then I proceeded to pin the top, smoothing things out as I went.  When the top was finished, I flipped it over and smoothed out the back.  I had to move every single pin, because even though I THOUGHT it was tight and smooth, it wasn't.  When the back was re-pinned, I flipped it over to the front again, and did it once more.  This took a long time, a couple days, and was hard on the back.  But I finally was satisfied that I could quilt it with no puckers, and so under the needle it went.  It quilted beautifully, and I am pleased with the finished result.

Finished! (Sorry for this blurry picture.)

This shows the binding, quilting, and backing.