I had an applique quilt machine quilted by a long arm quilter out of town. I am not at all happy with it. I put so much time into hand appliqueing and was going to try to enter it next year in a Fair quilt show but can't now because the machine quilting is done not so great. Would anyone rip out the machine quilting and have it done by someone that could do custom quilting (which may be out of my price range and the binding is already machine sewn on so there isn't that extra quilt batting and backing for a machine quilter)or I just may hand quilt it myself. It's not heavily quilted thank goodness and there are spots where she missed quilting a section. I guess you get what you pay for. Thought it was a good deal but not. So would anyone be crazy enough to take out the machine quilting stitches? :roll:

I rip out machine quilting (and over applique) all the time! It is a pain, but always worth it to me!! I find it easier to pull the stitches between the backing and the batting. Good luck!

Yes, Mine had so many pleats in the back and the batting was thick and not to my liking. It took me a month, little by little and I did it. I still have to send it back to the LAQ to be redone. I found if you clip the threads at 3 inch intervals, Then you can wiggle the thread out one by one. Work in small areas.

i had to take out about 3 feet of machine quilting one time from a king size quilt, it took about 6 hours and was a mess...but i got it done and re-quilted it...so,
totally up to you, if you want to take out what has been done get a new sharp seam ripper and go to town, it will take a while. then you have to clean it up and start over. is it really so bad? maybe once you finish the binding and wash it it will be great? those two final steps really can make a quilt sing !

Thanks so much for your replies. So I am not too crazy ;O(
It is really kind of bad...she also didn't go over the applique but there needed to be quilting in the large applique pieces. This person also quilted a quilt for my grandson that i made for him for xmas. And ckcowl said if I wash it it turns out better looking and that is what I did on the grandson's quilt. It is not so bad and he is not old enough to know any better...lol I just wanted it to look half way decent. She didn't even clip threads and when I clipped one it started to unravel. Maybe I can get my husband to sit and take out quilting while he is watching tv....not!

I used one long arm quilter and when I received the finished quilt, it was terrible. First, the back was upside down. Everything had been marked and both the front and back had obvious directional prints. I could have lived with this, but.... On the back there were over 30 significant areas (1 inch or longer) where the bobbin thread had looped up like eyelashes. When I contacted her, she denied it. I offered to send pictures and she finally agreed to redo the quilting. It was only a simple meander pattern.

She said she would remove the quilting, but I didn't trust her to do that without damaging the quilt, so I undid the entire thing! It was lap-sized and it took me several hours to remove it all.

I returned it and she re-did the quilting. This time she paid more attention to what she was doing and it was fine. Needless to say, I found a new quilter! lol

If you aren't happy, I would remove it. But, it is time consuming.

I've got a sm. wall hanging that I had machine quilted on a longarm. Afterwards I thought it didn't do anything for it, it took away from the pattern. So little by little I'm ripping out & hand quilting. If I rip it out totally, I probably would never get it done! Either way, I work on it when we go rving. Hopefully, I'll have it done by spring.

Thanks oatw13...after the replies that is what i am going to do ...remove the quilting. I didn't know if I was insane in thinking to do so. I am the type of person that likes things done right or it will bother me forever. I put so much work in the hand applique that it just bothers me so. Thanks again and will keep you all updated on my progress. I have a pic of the quilt before I had it quilted and will post it if I can find it. Thanks again!

I would take out the stitching. If you are not happy with it now, you will never be happy with it.

I can't figure out why you would have a beautiful hand applique quilt machine quilted. If it is heirloom quality, and it sounds like it is, have it hand quilted. Esp. if it is anything like your avatar.