You need to contact her and either show her the pictures or have her over to where the LA is. I had this same problem with poor workmanship and even after telling this client that since her quilt did NOT lay flat and that I would have to take tucks (she didn't measure her borders), I ended up refunding her payment. Sometimes it is NOT worth the problems this can cause.

If I were the client I would appreciate a phone call or an invitation to come over and take a look at it. I would not want you to lose money and I would like the opportunity to make my own decision about the quilt. If I could see what you are up against it would help me understand and learn how better to make my quilts n the future. Good luck!

if I was the piecer, I would appreciate a call - and suggestions on how to make it behave better.

If I was the longarmer, I think I would return it - along with an explanation of why I am returning it.

I am not a magician - although some longarmers seem to be!

I read a suggestion from another quilt I know about steam pressing the fullness out right on the frame. I've had to do that on a few of mine when my border and even a block or two came out with way too much fabric. Steaming helped quite a bit, enough that I was able to quilt with no problems. I'm now in the market looking for a hand held hopefully cordless steamer to keep in my quilting room. I hate lugging my iron in every time I need to steam out fullness. I don't wash my fabrics before I make my tops so I know I will have some shrinking which is good news for me in this case.

Thanks Snooze. I'll definitely give that a try. She liked my design proposal, so it looks like I have a plan. Hope I can pull it off.

Piecing problems aside, I think it would have helped a lot if the top had been properly pressed before it was brought to you.

Daffy

I thought some of you might like to see the end result. Not the whole top of course (I'm not that quick :) ) but I finished the first row of rings. Here is the same section I showed in the first post in this thread, after quilting (and steaming the heck out of it first). Thank you all for your advice.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]517618[/ATTACH]

Looks like you accomplished a miracle.

The quilting looks great!

Amazing! I wouldn't have believed it.

Wow, that's a great job! I hope your customer will realize that you solved an unsolvable problem.

Daffy