Believe it or not, hand quilting has the ability to cause imperfections to "quilt out." They are there one minute & when you are finished with that area, the puckers are gone! I think it has something to do with the hills & valleys created by hand quilting with a low-loft polyester batting. Doesn't work as well with the cotton batting as it's flatter than poly. The top is rather pretty & I'm sure you will do a lovely job quilting it for her. Besides, with the cooler weather finally here, having a quilt to snuggle under while you're quilting it is a good thing.

Have you considered getting the quilt wet and blocking it area by area.

I had this happen to me shortly after I started quilting, my husband brought home TWO quilt tops that his mother made, back in the day of cereal box templates and scissors.
Trip Around The World with several borders half sewn on with intent of being mitered. :-(

These things were huge! Being new to quilting I decided to use a flat sheet to back them, had to remove a border to fit a king sheet which was no easy task as she used a very small stitch length. Needless to say my wonderful husband was in the dog house for a time.

Moral to this story is that after I fixed the borders, quilted and bound them, I gave them to her on Mother's Day and her joy at having them finished was well worth my time.

Don't stress too much, your MIL will be so happy to have her top made into a quilt she wont notice the imperfections that you as A QUILTER will (we tend to be perfectionests) and because she's family you will earn alot of DIL points :-)

Good Luck!

The suggestions above sound like good ones; however, it looks like it has some yellowing caused by age in storage. Before you press anything, I would really recommend soaking it in Oxyclean and then gently washing it (perhaps in a pillowcase because of raw edges).

If you have access to a pressured steamer/iron, and Best Press this may help "encourage" the quilt to flatten out. I've had some quite good success with this method.

Sharon Schambers has an excellent tut on You Tube that shows how to tame a wonky block. She uses spray starch. She blocks it, then sprays it, and lets it set. Sometimes she says you have to do it a couple of times, but it does work. You may even be able to LA it after that.

I use an oval hoop on a stand. I start in the center and work out. I bet it turns out ok.

I would put it on the longarm. The stretching provided by the rollers will help to even out the wonkies, but I would try the pressing first, maybe with starch to help get everything back into shape. Quilter's Dream makes a lovely poly that has lots of loft that will help with the puckers. Because the sashing isn't straight, you really need to do an all-over quilting job on this quilt. The Baptist Fan would be lovely, so would swirly circles. I have quilted some very interesting quilts on my longarm (yeah, they are mine :oops: ) and they always turn out looking so much better after they are quilted!!! Please show us the end result!

If you decide you just have to quilt it by hand, use your LA to do the basting of the layers - so much easier!

Think you could put it on the frame, however, if you do hand quilt it, I would do a small scroll in the sashing and a large foral in the blocks. That way it covers every area, yet ignores the seams and intersections that don't meet properly. Once quilted, it will look great.

Good luck.

Sandy Quilter

the over all quilting my your longarm quilting will hid alot of the off fittings..