I just rescued a quilt for a friend of mine that was tied. I was afraid if I took out all of the ties it would leave holes. Most of them had pulled through on the back & it needed a new back & binding. I decided to put a new back on without taking off the old one- I really thought the whole thing would fall apart if I took it all apart. I did take off the binding though. It was a lot of work to get it flat enough to quilt. I then FMQ little circles around where each tie was. I really love how it came out- especially the back with all of the little circles in a pattern. It was more work than I thought, but I was glad to have saved a quilt.