bkay

As a business person, you have to learn to stick up for yourself. You have to be able to say, "no". There are always people who will push you to do something that makes it easier or cheaper for them and harder or more expensive for you. She "blew off" (ignored/disregarded) what you said about needing the backing to be larger. You allowed her to do that. (You took in the quilt even though you knew it wouldn't work.)

Unfortunately, we all do it. When you are starting a business, you want so much to have happy customers (or just any customers), you do things that don't make good sense (been there, done that - I used to be a caterer). Or, you hope they will be happy you solved the problem for them. Unfortunately, that rarely happens. Chances are she will be angry about the extra charge, as my guess is, you didn't tell her there would be an extra charge.

You say she didn't "get it". Maybe she "got it" and she didn't care. It was her mother's quilt, and maybe she isn't into quilts. Maybe her mother is a royal pain in the tush and she just wants to "get it done". Maybe she doesn't quilt and doesn't care to learn. You assumed she felt the same way you would/do about quilts and especially, your mother's quilts. Obviously, that's not true.

Sometimes, you just have to blunt. When she says, "do the best you can", you have to say, "Does that mean it's ok to cut down the quilt or do you want me to fix it? Either way, there will be an extra charge". She'll ask how much. Be ready with an answer. Be it a set price, or an hourly fee, have an answer. Be ready with, "I'm not sure, I'll call you" if you don't have an answer.

If you have trouble doing/saying those things, I suggest you practice. Have a friend or family member be the client. They say the phrase, "just do the best you can" and you answer them. Keep doing it until it's easy. I would actually think up a lot of phrases that customers throw at you and come up with answers for them.

As a last thought, the customer doesn't actually need to "get it" (understand how the system works), they just need to "get" that the backing has to be X number of inches larger than the quilt top. They can pay you to make it larger or they can make it larger. Period. End of sentence. No exceptions.

bkay