I HATE basting!

I decided to baste my New Wave lap quilt today and spent all day doing it! I just don't know what I am doing wrong. How can something that is supposed to be easy, be so *bleeping* hard?! I redid it twice before I even took it to the machine. I only managed to sew two straight lines on it and realised that it was not going to work at all. I then undid it and tried again and took it to the machine and again managed only two lines before I realised that it was not going to work either. I have to add that this time I basted on a table. I thought I had it all right with the clamps etc but it just didn’t work out. This time I thought I would do it on the floor. Once I had it laid out on the floor I thought the backing looked 'wrong'. Not quite sitting square, but I persisted anyway. I have managed to baste it and I have not as yet tried to quilt it yet. I might have to settle for stippling rather than the straight line quilting I was hoping for. But as I think back to my backing fabric, I realise that I ripped it down to size from a much larger piece of fabric instead of cutting it. Would this make the fabric uneven?? Could this be my problem, rather than be being a complete dumb-dumb when it comes to basting?? I think in future I will definitely cut my backing fabric from a larger piece! Any thoughts tips or hints on basting on a table top??