This is so smart and so simple. Why didn't I think of it myself?
In this video tutorial, Amanda Leins of mandalei.com shows how easy it is to attach your quilt back to the leaders using a stapler instead of pins or grippers. Pinning can be slow, tedious, and hard on your fingers. Grippers can be expensive, stiff, and add bulk as your quilt rolls onto the bar.
The only tools you need are a standard office stapler and plenty of staples. Be sure the stapler has two settings where the staple prongs get bent. You know the spot on the bottom of the stapler "jaw" where the staple prongs come out and get pushed into two little grooves that cause them to bend to meet at the center on the back side of your paper? Well you need a stapler that lets you rotate that base around where there are two little grooves spaced a bit apart. That causes the prongs to be bent facing outward away from center on the backside of the paper or, in this case, fabric. As far as the staples, the cheaper, the better.
In this stapler method, you match up center and other increments as carefully as always and start at the center as always. Hold the leader edge, bottom side to right side/bottom side of quilt backing and staple together, making sure the flat bar of the staple is on the fabric backing side and the prongs end up on the leader side. Continue stapling in the same directions and increments you would if you were pinning.
Wasn't that easy? No sore fingers!
https://mandalei.com/2014/01/24/staple-a-backing-to-your-longarm-leaders-now-on-youtube/
Now for the real fun--removing your quilt. Carefully pull the quilt backing apart from the leader. Don't pull too fast-- you do not want to send those pointy little staples flying all over the place. You want them to stay in the fabric. If you staples correctly, with the prongs on the leader side, they should all pull easily out of the leader and stay in you quilt backing. Now all you have to do is make a snip in the edge of the backing about an inch from the stapled edge and rip a strip off from that edge. That strip should have all your staples in it. Throw it away. No muss, no fuss!
Here's the video, courtesy of Craftsy and YouTube:
