how to hand quilt an old wavy quilt?
 

I am trying to hand quilt an old quilt top that wont lie flat. the edges were uneven, so i turned them under and pinned and basted them. but if i make it as flat as possible, it will be a quilt with catty-wonky dimensions. if i make it as flat as possible, i will be quilting over ripples and making puckers. it was hand peiced and so not accurate seam-matching, so i think my quilting over ripples will just follow the character that it already has. what do you think?

do you have a picture by any chance?? Some wonkiness might work its way out when put in the quilt frame and stretched out. Or you can take it apart and put it back together so it lies flat...(which might be my choice if it were really unworkable)

eta: I will admit that i'm pretty much a perfectionist about a lot of things, too.....unsquare wouldn't bother me as much as the top not being able to lie flat.

I agree that I would probably take the borders off, if they're the only problem, and reattach them so that they're lying flat. If the problem goes beyond the borders, I would make a decision based on where I got the quilt and what I want to do with it when it's finished. A little wonkiness can be just fine.

What's wrong with a little wonkiness on an old quilt?ha. I'll bet I would leave it that way.

A puffier batting will help take up some of the wonkiness. I'd probably just take little tucks here and there as I went.

or...you could just tie it instead of quilting it- with a lofty batting- then the wonkiness wouldn't be noticable.
or use a lofty batting & big-stitch quilting just enough to hold it together...if removing the borders & re-applying is not an answer.
how about pictures? then we could see what you are dealing with & maybe have more ideas :)

I would use a combination of quilting a design on the better blocks, and tying 4 ties on the wonky blocks. Waves go good on wonky blocks, but overall tying may be the best way.

thankyou so much for all the feedback. i will try to post a picture, but if it doesn't work, this is my blog with pictures: www.carmenpimmtucker.blog.com.
i am doing this for a friend, so i don't want to cut into it. just for sentimental value only. no borders. i like scissor queen's mention of the batting. if you see the picture, i was just going to stitch in the ditch, no frills.[ATTACH=CONFIG]365951[/ATTACH]

Love it! I would go with the suggestion to use a lofty batting and tie it.

You can see in the picture waves on both sides in the middle and waves on both ends. this is what happens when i try to flatten it. i can only guess that i have to ease-in the fullness as i baste and quilt.

Is the extra fullness just down in the bottom left hand corner??

I wonder if the white star could be re-sewn to take in some of the fullness?

I would straighten the sides/bottom a bit more before binding the edges. I think some of that could be eased in w/ a cotton batting and the quilting - W/ cotton batting, when it is washed, it'll wrinkle up and maybe make some of the extra not be so noticeable.

Maybe tie the middle of each design and another row out from the center?
Then hand quilt the solid white.. easing it as you go?

Since this is a quilt for sentimental value only, I would leave as is. Just don't quilt real tight and I think it will be fine. I am hand quilting the last quilt top that my Grandmother made. She had hand pieced, but her eye sight was going and there is a lot of problems with it. She gave it to my youngest son and wife when they got married. I told both of them they would have to put up and not use. I believe that the history of the quilt is more important than how it looks. Just my opinion.

I wish I had some suggestions for you but .........

thankyou so much for all the suggestions! i have turned under the edges all around to square it up best I can; pinned; will baste. i also read that if i pull the basting tight around the edges, i could pull out some of the waves. i am excited that the batting could possibly take care of a majority of my problems here!

I'm glad that you got some ideas - but you can't baste the edges and count on that to take care of everything - Basting the entire quilt top prior to quilting will help. Once you start hand quilting - you will have the fabric stretch out and you'll need the edges for the "airbubble" to escape.

Does that make sense?