Originally Posted by Eddie
Yes, this is a vintage quilt top that a customer brought me, one of several. The top itself is strip pieced blocks, i.e., the quilter took a bunch of random strips and pieced them together into 6" blocks, and then sewed the blocks together. Then, to "quilt" it, they sewed individual squares of fabric to the back of each block making it a lightweight quilt. This further complicates things because it restricts how much that I can pull and tug on the top to try and get things to lay flat. So I'm quilting it on the longarm and quilting through the original top and "backing" they did, and through my batting and solid backing.
I've got it about 3/4 of the way done, it has just been a real challenge. Too, those strips pieced into the blocks, a lot of them have pleats in them, etc. But the main problem seems to be those squares of "backing" they sewed to the back of each block, since they are really limiting how much I can pull and tug on this thing. Oh, well, we shall do what we can do to salvage it!
Sounds like its already got some pleats in the piecing, so if you add a few more little ones because you can't stretch it out, it's not a disaster. Since it was not the best piecing to start with, I would think the customer is wanting to preserve the memories and won't be displaying it as a work of art. Keep going the best you can and I think they'll be impressed with the preservation of their loved ones work.