March!
We're finally in March. Yea!
Hard to believe a month has passed since my last post.
For sure......I can't even tell you what I've been doing.
My presentation for March 18 is done.
Now I'm starting an outline for a workshop in May. It needs to be complete this month as I'll be away for most of April and I want all the Preliminary Instructions to be available to those who will be joining me in person a week after I get back.
In the meantime, I have done a bit of sewing and quilting and just finished a customer's quilt for her grandson. She was a new referral and I was remis in taking the information she gave me as accurate.
Consequently when I got to the last few inches of her quilt I discovered the backing was too short.
If this had been a handquilted or tied quilt, the fact her backing was a just a 'little' bigger than the top would have been fine. However when the quilt is being machine finished on a frame the backing needs to be roughly a foot longer than the top. This is because of the nature of how it is fastened onto the frame and the fact the backing travels further than the top as it is rolled with batting and the flimsy in place.
What did I do?
After making the owner aware of the problem I removed the quilt from the frame with the last few inches unquilted, CUT the excess backing material from the beginning of the quilt, sewed it to the backing and finished the border on my domestic. Fortunately the quilted pattern for the border was totally separate from the body of the quilt.
I know that after I show my friend how this happened she'll have a better understanding of how to prepared her quilts to be longarm finished.
This pictures shows how the top of the quilt (white) and the backing (black) extends out past the backing (red)
The piece cut from the beginning of the quilt is about to be stitched to the too short backing.
The seam line falls on the center of the diamond pattern and is barely noticeable.
While the front of the quilt is very busy and is great for "I SPY'" fun, the back of this quilt is where all the action is with cartoons for a two year old.
