Yes, sad but true. After thinking I was the queen of bias, my crown has slipped. My quilt, Egyptian Garden I was hanging in my living room. Every time I looked at it, the lower left edge sagged and buckled more. This quilt is going to a show in a month or so. Having to redo the binding is not my favorite thing to do. What could I have done wrong? I wrote the booklet on binding, could I have messed up?
Yes I certainly did. I marked where the quilt was cupping toward the wall. I took off the binding on that side of the quilt and the lower corner. Thinking it was perhaps the quilting, I removed the quilting around the palm tree (this took two evenings.) I steamed the heck out of the area, using no pressure on the fabric and re-quilted it.
I hung it back on the wall, with the binding hanging down on the lower edge of the quilt. It looked like it was going to hang straight, but my husband said, the side wasn't straight, it curved out in the center. I laid it out on my cutting table and sure enough; it curved out 3/8th of an inch in the lower middle.
So I whacked it off, reattached the binding, and hopefully it will hang straight this time. The moral of this story is no matter how good a quilter you think you are; you can still mess up! Certainly I did. My crown has dropped to the floor and rolled across the room hitting the cat on the way!
While working on this project , I figured out how to stop this from happening again:
Ann
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| Egyptian Garden I by Ann Fahl |
Yes I certainly did. I marked where the quilt was cupping toward the wall. I took off the binding on that side of the quilt and the lower corner. Thinking it was perhaps the quilting, I removed the quilting around the palm tree (this took two evenings.) I steamed the heck out of the area, using no pressure on the fabric and re-quilted it.
I hung it back on the wall, with the binding hanging down on the lower edge of the quilt. It looked like it was going to hang straight, but my husband said, the side wasn't straight, it curved out in the center. I laid it out on my cutting table and sure enough; it curved out 3/8th of an inch in the lower middle.
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| Edge of Egyptian Garden I trimmed so it is straight. |
So I whacked it off, reattached the binding, and hopefully it will hang straight this time. The moral of this story is no matter how good a quilter you think you are; you can still mess up! Certainly I did. My crown has dropped to the floor and rolled across the room hitting the cat on the way!
While working on this project , I figured out how to stop this from happening again:
- Be careful when pinning out the completed quilt to the dressmaker's cutting board before blocking with steam. Perhaps I pulled the edge out too taut. Over time, parts of the quilt relaxed more than others.
- Measure the sides and check the straightness twice before trimming and binding.
Ann
6 comments:
Funny you should blog about this problem today. I'm removing binding and trying to figure what's wrong with my wobbly edge in one place. Thanks for the advice.
Good luck to you and your wobbly edge!
What A pain! The quilt is absolutely beautiful Ann. Absolutely!
This is what I enjoy about your blog. You tell what your problem is, and HOW you fixed it. That is a book idea for you... How to fix problems in quilts. I am no rookie quilter, but I often clueless how to fix things like wavy edges. Thanks so much for the info.
Thank you Sarah, I'm done with this quilt, but I have some wavy edges yet to deal with. Each one offers a slightly different problem!
"pinning it to dressmaker's board" .... did you use a cardboard dressmaker's board"? Ever spritz a quilt with plain water and just let it dry?
Thanks,
Diane
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