What to do with an oversized quilt top
 

I made a quilt that was set on the diagonal. I made a measuring mistake. Instead of making 6" blocks, I made 8" blocks. As I was making it, I thought that it was really big. When I finished the top, it really was huge! It covered the top of my queen size bed to the floor. And I haven't even put the borders on it. I'm leaving out the borders. I was going to hand quilt it, but I'd be quilting into the next century if I did that.

Now I'm having a hard time deciding what to do with it. It would be too huge for me to handle with my domestic machine. It costs a fortune to pay to have it done. Because it's on the diagonal, I can't just rip it in half. If I rip it on the diagonal, I'll end up with bias edges of maybe 5 feet and the edges would be all wonky from ripping out the stitches. But that may be my only solution.

Any suggestions?

You could still cut it into 3rds to quilt it then put it back together-- there are tutorials to show how to do this. Then you could sell or gift it to someone with a king sized bed. You might even show it off & find someone who would like to buy it, then factor in the cost of longarm quilting to send it out. I always get a 50% deposit on a sale which would more than cover the cost of the quilting, then remainder due upon completion.

You don't have to cut the top into thirds in order to quilt it in sections. What you do instead is cut the *batting* into thirds. This reduces the bulk considerably, especially when quilting the middle. There are some tricks to doing this so you don't end up with a mess. Try searching for "quilt in sections" on the QB and you should pull up some old threads on this technique.

Edit: I found this old thread with some information.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1...s-t268061.html

I make a lot of quilts on the diagonal. I also hand quilt them. stay stitch on the diagonal first heavily starch it so it won't stretch then quilt it by hand. I do it all the time and I know you can too.

I have done that before, worked on a quilt and ended up with a monster. I got out my seam ripper and removed the outer blocks on all sides. With the extra I made pillow shams. Not seeing your quilt, you may not be able to do that. But, in the long run, it was better to have a quilt I could use than a monster I couldn't use.

Prism99 that is so clever!

I have done the one third at a time method cutting the batting and it works wonderfully.

Tie it! You can always have it quilted later.

You can also sew a row of stay stitching just under a quarter inch from where you want to cut. Reduce your stitch length a bit and make sure you don't stretch while stitching. Then you can just cut the excess off even if it's on the bias because the stay stitching will keep it from stretching. When you add your borders this will stabilize everything. For added stability, you can also heavily spray starch the area you are going to cut first.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]538263[/ATTACH]This quilt was about 18-20" too wide before borders. I just took it off one side, added borders and will use the ther for pillow shams.