Started at the wrong place when I went to quilt
#1
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Carroll, Iowa
Posts: 3,386
Started at the wrong place when I went to quilt
Well, here's something for all to laugh about as I'm laughing now that I've got it fixed. I'd lost my quilting mojo and haven't touched my machine since I think last September. Finally told myself I needed to get busy as I had 3 quilts that needed to be quilted and bounded by the middle of September this year plus one that I needed to put together. Blocks are all made thankfully. Anyway, about a week or so I got the backing pieced together and attached to the leaders. Then finally last week I pieced the batting using batting tape and a bunch of cutoffs from previous quilts. They were fairly good sized pieces. Finally the other day I basted the batting to the backing, then added the quilt top. Got my IQ set up to do a pantograft or whatever you call them. Anyway, just tootling along, got 2 rows done and went to advance the quilt but I was seeing the end leader already. What had I done but forgot to roll the backing back to the beginning on the takeup roller so I started my quilt about the last 5 feet of it. So I cut off the beginning of the backing and thought I could stitch it on the quilt machine to the end. Well that didn't work out as planned as I'd have to add it from the underside and try to keep it taut enough so I could stitch a straight line. Not good. So I took the whole mess off the frame. Trimmed a straight line off the big piece of backing, pinned it to the end section and stitched it back together on my cutting table to keep the weight from pulling on me.
Got the whole mess back on the frame, realigned my pattern on IQ and luckily I got it even straighter on the frame than I did before I think. All in all it took more time to fix my goof up than it did to do the actual quilting. Made another mistake but easily fixed with IQ. What a lesson I learned. Now I'm laughting at myself but I surely wouldn't want to have to go thru it again.
Got the whole mess back on the frame, realigned my pattern on IQ and luckily I got it even straighter on the frame than I did before I think. All in all it took more time to fix my goof up than it did to do the actual quilting. Made another mistake but easily fixed with IQ. What a lesson I learned. Now I'm laughting at myself but I surely wouldn't want to have to go thru it again.
Last edited by QuiltnNan; 07-25-2019 at 06:50 AM. Reason: language
#3
Junior Member
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 165
Haven’t had that particular problem. However, was doing a quilt once of moderate size and something went wrong between IQ, tension, just a little bit of everything. I was watching it but thought everything would be ok. When I got to end of row I couldn’t live with the result. Pulled it off the LA and sat in front of TV and ripped it all out and started over. Luckily the fabric didn’t show what I’d taken out. I feel your pain. Also loaded batting wrong way once. Realized it half way thru quilting. Took it off bottom roller put ironing board up to LA and used strip of iron on lightweight interfacing to add a strip of batting. Cordless iron made that process easier.
#6
Super Member
Join Date: Aug 2018
Location: Greater Peoria, IL -- just moved!
Posts: 6,066
Some days go like that, luckily you are able to laugh sooner than later.
One of the last quilts I did on the long arm gave me all sorts of fits... it was a simple quilting design but the first back I had for it wasn't large enough which measured as if it would be but once I loaded it, it wasn't... So then I went and bought more fabric and for whatever reason I didn't cut the pieces correctly and it wasn't big enough either but I had enough to make it work.
And then the machine was balky and my stitch lengths are simply awful.
Pulled it off the machine and a year later it isn't so bad... no one else knows about the wrong back or the issues with the current back and although you can look for the bad stitching, it's my quilt and I don't
I'm laughing now but I wasn't then!
One of the last quilts I did on the long arm gave me all sorts of fits... it was a simple quilting design but the first back I had for it wasn't large enough which measured as if it would be but once I loaded it, it wasn't... So then I went and bought more fabric and for whatever reason I didn't cut the pieces correctly and it wasn't big enough either but I had enough to make it work.
And then the machine was balky and my stitch lengths are simply awful.
Pulled it off the machine and a year later it isn't so bad... no one else knows about the wrong back or the issues with the current back and although you can look for the bad stitching, it's my quilt and I don't
I'm laughing now but I wasn't then!
#7
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Posts: n/a
I just cringe reading your saga because we have all been there. Once you are in the midst of it you need to figure out a way to get yourself out of the mess. Usually you feel pretty accomplished once it is over and no worse for wear. I hate days like that and it usually happens at the most inopportune times. Kudos to you for getting it done!! Our non-sewing friends think our fancy machines do it all for us just easy peasy.......
#9
Super Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: kansas
Posts: 6,407
oh, no! twice I've had to add backing while on the quilting frame. There's some video that shows how to do this--but their example is about 34" across and of course on one of mine it was a queen size and very hard to do. Kudos to you for sticking with it!
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