How many hours have you struggled with someone else's quilt top?
 

I gave my sister a quilt kit years ago, and she finished the quilt. I am getting it ready to quilt on my midarm frame but, oh my! A lot of the larger triangles have been stretched out of shape, and there are holes where her stitching did not catch both sides of a seam. It's a queen-sized quilt top, so there is just a *lot* of it to handle! I am working on ironing and starching it into submission, but the frequent trips to the sewing machine to mend holes and take in seams is taking its toll. I have maybe 3 hours into the quilt top and am not even one-quarter done with it.

I'm glad to finally finish this quilt for my sister, but I'll never give her another complicated quilt kit! There are plenty of nice quilts that don't have big triangles in them.

I've done two others for her (both also JoAnn's quilt kits that I gave her), but this third one is by far my biggest challenge.

Any other near-horror stories out there?

I was given twin size quilt top to do quilt in the ditch on a regular machine. I thought no big deal just straight line quilting. It was a mess like what you described. I fused lightweight interfacing on the back of the top, adding batting and backing and did close crosshatching quilting all over. The stretched out fabric did get tamed and it looked pretty decent.

I arrived at guild meeting 3 years ago and meet a lady coming across the parking lot that I did not know. I greeted her and found out she was there merely to find someone to help her finish her deceased mother's GFG quilt. So I looked at it briefly, gave her my name and contact info, and told her I'd take the quilt home, exam it thoroughly and let her know what had to be done, how much I'd charge. I have never heard from her again and lost her number!! The guild continues to meet in the same location, there is a church secretary there every day, each guild president knows this story and still she seems to have made no effort to find us again.

It makes me sick that I still have her family quilt but I have no idea who she is and can not do anything with it until I hear from her someday. It's in the way in my studio, wish I knew what to do!:confused:

Jan in VA

Jan in VA if you live in a small town maybe you could put up a notice in the grocery store or the church, like someone might do if their dog was lost.

A senior citizen friend of mine gave me blocks that her mother had made. She asked me to finish it for her. The blocks were all hand sewn. The problem.....none of the blocks were the same size (I can't remember what the differences were). Anyway, I had to trim some down and one block I had to add a small border to get it to size.

I put in sashing to get things to work and then machine quilted it. It wasn't my best or favorite quilt but she was and is delighted to have it on her bed. I'm glad that I did it but it is my LAST time I accept someone else project. I work on my own projects now. I learned to say no......in a nice way.

Well, I'm afraid to do my own first quilt - a king size red/white/blue pinwheel quilt. Tons of errors, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing! It looks good from a distance of time and space. Some day I might work up the courage to quilt it or get it quilted.

Maybe she saw no real value in the quilt and was glad it was out of her hair? Or something happened to her and the rest of the family doesn't realize that a treasure is sitting in your space. Either way - how sad.

Intriguing story posted by Jan in VA....and even more intriguing "answers" posted by Mad Quilter in CA. I am a Long Arm quilter and love to work on those "stored-away-projects-from-Grandma". I've worked on a number of them and they all require some type of "fix". I've seen the frayed seams, the uneven and stretched selvages, unsewn seams, rust stains, and holes (either ripped or chewed). Although they each, and all, provided quite a challenge, it was worth the effort to see the owner pleased to have the family treasure returned in a usable condition. Makes me work hard on my own projects to make sure the don't pose a problem.

Lordy. My GF gave me one she found at an estate sale that must be 100x100 and made out of courdory! Whoever started it had planned on adding some sort of dust ruffle instead of binding it. I ripped it off and fashioned it into a proper binding but found that it was never squared up. Getting this beast on my table alone is a challenge, much less trying to square it up. Its taking forever. I will never ever ever take on anothers project. That said, it feels good to restore something so old that was cast off. My GF wants to use it. I'm going to embroider her initals so she can't sell it on ebay ;)