I got back a paper pieced quilt from the longarm quilter this week, and on the bottom edge she had taken a tuck. It goes from the bottom about 8 inches into the quilt. She said the quilting was denser in some places than others, and it was just left over fabric at the bottom. The sides measure the same, and the top edge is 1" longer than the bottom with the tuck. Paper piecing usually gives me square quilts, so I don't think that was the problem. I did the thing I usually do when the hairdresser cuts my hair and gives me Dumb and Dumber bangs, and I said it was fine, but it's not. I can applique something over it, but then I am still left with squaring up the quilt to make it hang right. I don't have much experience with longarm quilters, and I'm not sure if I should leave it alone or take it back. I don't like confrontation, so I don't know. The rest of the quilting looks good. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

Wow! You must be seriously disappointed. I am a new longarm quilter and have no experience with quilting paper pieced tops, but something doesn't sound right. Was the tuck in the border? Sometimes the borders stretch and are longer than the quilt edge, which can cause havoc in quilting. But if it was in the quilt block itself, well that just doesn't sound right. I'd suggest you talk to her and have her tell you honestly if there was a problem with the quilt and if not I'd have her fix it.

It's a Judy Neimeyer pattern, "Raindrops." The outside edge is squares.

can you post a picture of the whole quilt and a close up of the tuck

"Paper piecing usually gives me square quilts, so I don't think that was the problem."

Paper piecing doesn't guarantee the quilt is square. Did you square up the quilt before sending it off? I'd like to see a photo too. Although I'm not a long-arm quilter they're only able to work with what they've been given and have to assume the product is a "final work" and needs no tweaking-squaring etc. If I were the quilter I'd assume it was ready to quilt if it were sent to me. Now if the quilter were somehow responsible for making the quilt top off-square, that's a different story.

Borders can be a problem for long armers. I hope they were cut to size and sewed on and not just sewed on and cut remaining off. I am sure the long armer did what she could with it. I hope you can fix it so it is not obvious.

I'm not very good at pictures, and I'm not sure you can tell anything from these, but here they are, I think. I measured the center both ways, and it measures 2 inches smaller through the center. Is that because of the quilting or is it something I did? This is a quilt that I basted together two years ago and let it sit because it was batik and I didn't want to hand quilt it and I was going to learn to machine quilt. I found I don't enjoy machine quilting at all, so I got it out, took out the basting, and sent it to the quilter. I don't remember any issues when I basted it together. I don't know of any way to tell whether or not this was my fault or not. I'll probably just end up trying to fix it myself. Confrontation is bad. In the first picture, it is sideways, and you can see on the right side, which is the bottom, that the second block on the bottom is wider at the top than at the bottom.

Whoa I see the tucks now. Probably the top was not taut on enough. The quilting sure is nice. I see some rippling overall on the sides which leads me to believe that is the problem. I have learned to stablize my sides and it avoids tucks in the seams and ripple effects on outer borders. Not sure you can actually fix it without distorting it more.

I can see how you would be dissappointed with the pleat on your beautiful quilt. Being a longarm quilter myself I understand the sometimes things happen that we can not control no matter how hard we try. And other times we might notice something and be able to fix it with a little more effort. If I had a quilt that my customer was not pleased with I would want her to come back and ask me if I could "fix" it for her, or if there was some way she could "fix" it herself.

I have a possible solution for you, depending on your skill and confidence level. First, pick out the quilting a little on either side of the tuck, maybe 1/8-1/4 inch. Then gently push the fabric from one side under the other side so that the tuck is inside and the seam appears straight. Next, slip stitch the new seam together. Lastly, re-quilt the quilting over the new seam. You will need to be careful with your start and stop quilt stitching so it doesn't look overstitched. Does that make sense? If not, let me know and I'll try to explain it better.