There are 50 ways to leave your lover and there are equal that many ways to produce a quilt that is totally out of square. Hills and valleys, friendly borders and bias backlash to name just a few but I am not going to talk about any of them today. What I am going to do is talk about how the holy hell to quilt a monster that shows up at your door in this condition or perhaps it is even a monster of your own making.
Let me take a moment to say that I am the worlds WORST piecer.. like I am CRAPTASIC at keeping a true or scant 1/4 inch, I am a tad too forgiving in my cutting and I am a joyful sewer.. meaning that I rock out to music and often sew things together that have no business being matched up.. so I am NOT out to crush anyone’s mojo when I tell you how I cover up hide fix these issues as much as humanly possible. ( In the best world these things would not happen.. so education and technique are a great starting point!)
First part, sometimes it is not freakin possible to fix some of these train wrecks. They will require tucks, extensive easing and an exorcism and they are still not ever going to be what one would call square. For a sofa throw or casual bed quilt this is not the end of the world but if that clusterfuck of dicey techniques is going to hang flat and square on a wall some miracles are going to have to happen.
And let me say sometimes there are not enough miracles to be had no matter how much you pray or curse over it. It is best to be able to spot these issues early so you can talk with the top owner ( or yourself) about the options and possible outcomes.
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1) JUST SAY NO! ( Nancy Reagan would be proud of you!) – As a quilter you have the right to say no even after you have said yes! If after laying out and measuring***** ( more on that in a moment) you find that the quilt top you have been given is a total Frankenquilt you can just hand it back to your client and tell them the issues and at minimum what will need to be fixed. – some headaches are just not worth it!
2) Yes, BUT.. List out exactly ( but kindly) the issues with the quilt and what you will need to do ( and WILL BE charging extra for) to resolve.
3) GET IT IN WRITING – just do it.. I know you feel like you have been clear with your customer.. do it anyway and some day you will be so happy at me that you will name your new cat Maddie and I will be all verklempt about it.
4) If you do say yes…. MEASURE.. and not just across the middle ( people this is silly if you just measured me in one place ( my wrists.. very dainty) you would think I was thin… I am NOT) .. I am talking I want at least 4-6 good measurements across and up and down. Make up a form and note all these numbers. If you end up with something like 46, 44, 46, 48 then refer back to number one on my list.. GIVE IT BACK.. but otherwise I want you to look for the smallest numbers.. since while there are some tricky ways to ease in fullness it is very hard to make a quilt grow ( even if you did water it will Miracle Grow!) That SMALLEST number both vertically and horizontally is the number you are going to square too and then you are going to look at how much fullness you are talking about and how it is arranged on the quilt.
If the fullness is pretty even all over the quilt you are in luck! A bit puffier than normal batting will make this doable ( charge for that), or a scattering a C-cup dresdens can be helped by some strategic faux trapunto ( remember you are charging extra for these things! – have I hammered that into your head yet?)
Fullness at just the border can be handled in many ways.. send it back to the client to fix with a GOOD lesson on how to measure and apply borders or you can take them off and sew them back on for a charge. You can add and extra strip of batting under them or in some cases an artful tuck can be made that look like a seam and no one is the wiser.
If on the other hand the fullness is all in one area things are tricker and I will return in future posts to talk about exercising these demons ( or not) or you can find the ever wonderful Lisa – That Crazy Quilt Girl and take one of her classes on the very topic.
So there you go… do you have a naughty quilt top that you have tangled with and come out the winner? Tell us about it and how you made it lie down and behave!
Maddie, I FMQ smaller quilts on my Janome, and have taken a long arm class and done a few with pantos, but for my queen and king quilts, I send out to my favorite long arm quilter. I try to square them before and again after quilting using a large construction square, but I could use tips on squaring up super big quilts, as I have limited indoor space. When weather is good, I can use my concrete patio or garage floor, but when it’s rainy or snowy, would appreciate any tips you have for squaring them indoors. Thx! Love being a part of this badass community!
As I’m working on my first bed sized quilt, I’m so glad to have this information. I love to fmq but don’t know if I could handle a full/queen sized quilt on my domestic machine since I’ve only done small wall hanging and my first ever pieced lap quilt.
The worst one I ever worked with – I just went with it! It finished all wonky with crazy corners, funky folds and not the square it should have been. At the end of the day, it didnt matter! It was a first quilt given to a 2 year old who cared not one bit about the squareness and perfection. I kind of like the crazy – the quilt is still loved and it is something fun to look back on now that the quilter is learning lots!
Do you steam to stretch or shrink? Is it possible to shrink and stretch with steam then dry and starch. Btw informative as well as entertaining info. Loved your verbal choices!
Pam, you are totally right that is is possible to manipulate the fabric to some extent and I will be talking about it for sure! I always hesitate since while it can work miracles, it is a function of size that often gets in the way! 🙂
I love this post! As I love to piece and bind, and do not love to quilt at all, I send my quilts off to a quilter – the heavens opened up the day I learned that these people existed! I am self taught so I had no idea about the right way to do anything! My quilter gave me little hints at her preferences of what she liked to receive, although I have a feeling that she has not divulged all of her pet peeves yet. I would love to read a post about that… If we want the best results for all of our hard work, we should do our due diligence to prepare things in the best way possible for our quilter, I would appreciate the proper way to set my quilter up for optimal success.
Also, please know that when you send your quilter a jank quilt, that is exactly what you are going to get back.
Lily you are totally right and I am usually my worst customer ever! 🙂 The better the quilt top you turn over the better the quilt you will get back!!
Here is a good one. I constantly get a quilt top from a quilting ‘teacher’ that has wonky borders, or mitered borders that are far from correctly mitered borders. I find myself always fixing them. Until….one day I was ready to start to quilt her quilt top when alas the backing was toooooo small. I called and explained the situation. Her statement was “well it was the correct size when I brought it to you!” What the…yes I must confess, I hire Gremlins to eat on clients fabric. Now, I call and ask her to pick it up and fix it. No teaching done here as its a waste of time.
Well, the toughest squaring job I ever had to do was my very own doing ~ ~ and was barely going to be done in time for my son’s wedding ~ ~ so it had to be fixed! I called upon my favorite quilting guru and she suggested lots and lots of steaming ~ ~ as in spraying with the steamer, and hovering the iron over the top of the stretched area and then letting it completely dry before moving it. And it took several times of the spraying and hovering and letting it dry. But I tell you NO ONE would ever guess how out of whack that lovely quilt was once because lots of steam and lots of persistence won the day with that project.
Now I use spray starch before cutting those bias angles :):)
I made several quilts before anyone introduced me to the concept of “squaring up”. It was quite enlightening.
Received a HUGE top from a gal going in for major shoulder surgery the next day, & it was a Christmas gift for her parents. My bad for not opening it up to look at it right then & there. When I tried to load it on my machine, it was the WORST I’d ever encountered, & there was NO WAY I’d be able to quilt it like that. Since she was now out of commission, I took it upon myself to take it apart & reassemble it the right way. It had 6 borders…IT.HAD.SIX.BORDERS!!! I spent hours & hours ripping & putting it back together, but it got done in time, & was beautiful when I finished. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what I’d done because of what she’d done – it was my fault for not looking at it. Hardest lesson I’ve ever learned. I never took another quilt top from her.
Oh my goodnesssss…. You are an angel and I can see what you did not do another!