Quilt back from quilter with borders stretched
 

After piecing a rather involved quilt, I added striped borders with mitered corners to match stripes that ran around the perimeter of the quilt. I took great care to make sure everything was square and matching. I sent it out to a longarm quilter and when it came back to me, the borders had been stretched especially at the corners. I don't know how to remedy the problem. If I leave it as it is and bind it, the binding will obviously not follow the stripes of the outer border. If I try to square them it will cut off the stripes and in places and be obvious in the finished quilt. I've thought about picking out the stitching and cutting the quilt back before the striped borders but am not sure that will solve the problem.
The only other thing I can think of is to let the binding follow the skewed stripes but then it will not be square. Any suggestions ?

Is the rest of the quilt perfectly square, inside that border? And what kind of quilting is it - allover, or perhaps that outside border is quilted with a separate design so the stitches don't run from the inside into the border? How intricate is the quilting? Sorry so many questions, but the answers might help with a solution. A picture might also help. Sorry you're going through this. It must be very frustrating for you. I also realize that it can be hard to keep a quilt square, something that I'm sure professional longarmers struggle with all the time (and one reason I'm not a professional!)

The rest of the quilt is "fairly square" inside the border - square enough that I can live with it. It is not allover quilting so I could unquilt the border, add another border and requilt that portion - the only problem with this is the border matches the rest of the quilt and the fabric is no longer available. I hesitate to post a picture as the quilter (who is a friend) is probably on this board and since I use several different quilters, I would rather it be anonymous. - As I think through this the only solution is to replace the border with something that blends with the quilt and requilt it - or live with it. Since it is not a show quilt and not a gift for someone else, living with it may be the best solution. My frustration is that there is over 1,500 pieces in this top and I worked on it off and on for 2 years - a bit of an undertaking for me.

After in picking why can't you reuse the original border? Needle holes wash thee fabric and see if the disappear enough .good luck

Well, that was a duh moment fore. Thanks Dottymo for pointing out the obvious to reuse the border. And thank you dunster for getting me thinking. As usual, you're great and prove two heads are better than one to solve a problem.

Hope you are able to fix your quilt. How does this happen? I am obviously not a LAQ. It has happened to me several times also. Always measure my quilt before adding borders, everything is squared up, send off to be LA and get it back and Im thinking ...... is this the same quilt? This was not done by anyone on this board, and not always the same LAQ. Is there something I can do to prevent this? I have even tried sewing a 1/4 in. around the outside edge of my quilt before sending it off, hoping this would keep it from stretching.

when your quilt is taken to the long arm quilter she/he loads it onto a frame- the backing is attached to leaders then rolled onto a horizontal bar, the top is attached to different leaders and rolled onto another bar- the backing is then pulled across the quilting area and attached to a new leader/bar- the batting is placed *floated* across the backing- the top is pulled across the whole thing and attached (with pins, a line of stitching...) the sides are held with clamps to keep the edges from being *floppy* ... the whole 'sandwich' is held fairly firmly- to keep wrinkles/creases from happening on the backing (or top) this is why if you have a lot of seams around the edges of your quilt top they can come apart if you did not run a line of stitching all the way around the outer edge of your quilt (locking stitches to keep everything together) this is also why sometimes the quilt comes off the frame a bit *skewed* -- the process of turning the bars, advancing the quilt- tightening, smoothing, continuing on with the quilting (which in itself draws up the fabrics a bit-which is why it is necessary to have extra backing/batting) and why it is best to plan to square up your quilt after quilting/before binding.

Could you scallop the edge? Vi

Could this be a case where dampening and blocking the quilt would help?

I think DottyMo and you have figured out the solution. I only quilt my quilts. If they are messed up, usually not, it is me that has messed them up.