How I Messed Up a Quilt and How I Fixed It

Ok, excuse the French but shit happens.  And I'll tell you last week it hit pretty hard. 

You can watch the full video here:

YouTube Video

I was happily stitching away and had the computerized machine running in the background when it was time to roll to the final rows I noticed something terrifying... the end of the backing came around the bar...  I had mis-mounted the backing, and it was too short 😱😱😱.  

I haven't made this mistake since implementing my measure and write-it-down strategy.  However, I had been distracted and accidentally mixed up the length and width measurements.  So here is your friendly reminder to write it down and double-check! If you want a copy of the intake form I use (which usually works really well for me) You can find a copy here:

Intake Form

Alas, I suppose we all become a little complacent over time and it was my time to be reminded to pay attention.  But that doesn't really fix my problem.  I decided that the best course of action for the quilt and my client was to take out the previous 8 rows and restart.  I was so lucky that this happened on a small quilt (57" x 70").  But why did I decided to take out the quilting instead of adding more backing?  There are a couple of reasons why I made this choice.

• the fabrics were mostly quilt store quality cotton with a little bit of batik fabrics
• the quilt wasn't that large
• the quilted design I used wasn't too dense and didn't intersect itself
• my client hadn't made the mistake I had
• the backing was also a quality fabric

Now if the fabric hadn't been a good quality fabric I wouldn't have picked it out, there would inevitably been damage done to the top if this had been the case.  The quilt wasn't that big, so the unpicking wasn't insurmountable.  The design was pretty open and was easy to see on the quilt top.

When I do have to pick out such a large amount of quilting I usually do it on the frame to keep me focused (it's really easy to get distracted from a crappy job 😆).  It also allows the tension to remain consistent and that allows me to remove the stitches easier. 

I always make sure I'm working backwards too, this way if the design does cross itself I know I'm unpicking the top thread and not getting confused.  I start by taking up a couple of the top stitches and giving the top thread a little tug to show the bobbin thread, then I carefully use my ripper to cut that bobbin thread.   Then I tug a little more and anywhere from 10 to 15 stitches should let loose, then the bobbin thread will be more visible, I will cut that thread again and carry on cutting and tugging. 

When I unpick around batting I make sure to lift up the batting and cut the threads along the backing instead of trying to see the bobbing thread through the batting.

The unpicking of this quilt took me 3 hours.  That is a while to be hunched over a belly bar trying not to cut the quilt top.  When you find yourself in this situation (because we all end up here eventually 🤣) make sure to pay attention to how you're feeling as when we get tired we start to make mistakes.  I also take breaks to have a cup of tea and give myself a pep talk.  

Once all the unpicking was complete I was left with a quilt top that looked like this:

I took this top to the ironing board and gave it a good PRESS with a hot steamy iron, I also spritzed the whole top with water and PRESSED again.  Here are the results:

You can still see a little bit of the shadow, but this is more than reasonable and these little imperfections will disappear with a little handling.  You can see the backing fabric in the video.  

It was finally time to get stitching again!  Here is what the quilt looks like now that it's done. 

There are definitely some extra stray threads, but you can't see that it's been quilted twice hahaha.  Thanks, Joan for the opportunity to share this info with other people.

Remember, everything can be fixed. 

Sam