Originally Posted by lnordyke
OK. My friend gave me her grandmother's quilt top for me to quilt. It has polyester blocks put together with cotton blocks. The polyester has pulled up and would need to be stretched back to square before quilting. Any suggestions on how to do that? Should I use some sort of stabilizer on those blocks? If so, what do you recommend that I use?
Polyester does not shrink, but cotton does. Was the top washed or rinsed at some point? If it wasn't, then I wonder if the polyester blocks turned out smaller than the cotton blocks and the quilter "eased" the cotton blocks to the poly creating ripples.
If the only problem is squaring up the blocks, you can do that by blocking them with starch. Sharon Schamber demonstrates this method in several Youtube videos.
Since you mentioned shrinking, this one might be the most relevant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQkF0...next=1&index=2
However, if my theory about the cotton blocks being larger than the poly blocks is correct, what you would really need to do is shrink the cotton blocks. That would be this video (which has a 2nd part to it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6apl...next=1&index=1
Heavy starch will stabilize the blocks through the quilting process. For this type of quilt, you would want to quilt lines very close together (at the least, quilting lines on each side of every seam line) to reduce strain on the seams with use. Polyester frays much more easily than cotton, so the quilting is essential to avoid stress on the polyester.