I've had so much time this week to work on my triangle quilt along quilt. I sat down last night after work and worked on the quilting for about two hours only to flip it over and discover......the dreaded wrinkles.
The perfectionist in me says: "This is unacceptable. You must remove everything and start again! You won't love it if you don't! That's all you'll ever notice in the quilt!!"
The realist in me says: "Big deal, so there's a wrinkle in the back. It will take you twice and long to rip them all out and start over. It is a handmade quilt, there are bound to be some hiccups along the way. Accept it, learn from it, and move on."
So then the question becomes: Do I rip out the two hours of sewing I did last night and start over to get the 'perfect' back? Or do I just accept it and move on? What would you do?
While I was sitting at the computer contemplating my next steps and drowning in a pool of self-pity and doubt for my failure to make the perfect quilt, I had an unexpected visitor. A bear came right up to the picture window, tore down one of our bird feeders, and proceeded to help itself to a hearty meal of sunflower seeds. It certainly wasn't the largest bear I've ever seen but I tell you what, it scared the you-know-what out of me! Ahh... the joys of country living.
I'd probably take out the stitching, but I have a hard time holding back the perfectionist in me. Then again, the bear brings a new perspective. I doubt folks being pursued by a bear worry much about a few fabric pleats. Perhaps, you might want to hold off on feeding the birds (bears).
ReplyDeleteWhen I find tucks in my backing, I try to remove stitching as locally as I can and ease the fabric around until I think I can quilt it down without another tuck. That way I don't have to unstitch everything (usually) and I accept a bit more local pucker because of that. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI was going to suggest something similar to Yvonne above. Depending on the size of the folds, I'd try a little local repair. I've got an inner perfectionist in me too, but the outer, more pragmatic persona usually accepts a few small puckers/folds, especially if that means I'll avoid unpicking hours of stitching.
ReplyDeleteI'd weigh up how many tucks there are vs how much stitching you did. It's hard to tell how major they are from the photo. But like the others, I'm sort of leaning towards at least a bit of unpicking.If you quilted the whole quilt and it's just these two tucks in the middle, I'd be tempted to leave it, but if you only quilted a small section of a large quilt, I might be tempted to unpick.
ReplyDeleteYou're not alone in this dilemma - I've got a block I've unpicked about 3 times and now the fabric is starting to fray and I think I"m going to have to replace some of it. I've put it aside for a few days while I think about it.
I think you should proceed in whichever way you think will have you be happy with the quilt in the end. I think Yvonne had a great suggestion. If you can do some 'local repair' the ripping stitches won't be as daunting. I have done both, ripped and went on without ripping. For me it depends on the mood I'm in when I see the tucks ;)
ReplyDeleteFor a wrinkle, I would unpick, but that's just me. Unless I could sew the label over it!
ReplyDeleteA BEAR!!!!!!
See if you can repair the area around the fold, then make sure the rest of the back is good to go. If not, I like you am a perfectionist, and would spend my time ripping out what I did. My philosophy what is 2 hours when you spent 20 hours putting it together, it's worth being happy with the final product.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking from experience here because I just had to do this on my last finish! I can be a bit of a perfectionist and when I had tucks and wrinkles on the back of my brother's giant quilt, I ripped them out and re-quilted those lines of stitches. I knew that, for me personally, I won't be happy with the final quilt if I didn't.
ReplyDeleteOh no, I hope you solved your issue already. Yikes for the bear :-)
ReplyDeleteI would unpick and start again. I learnt the hard way with a quilt I finished recently. I started quilting it (and ended up with some minor puckers, so I left it) but the more I quilted it the more I hated it. Put it away for a little while. Had some suggestions on other things to do on it, so continued quilting again. Still hated it. Left it sitting around for a year before I had enough, wanted it done, and I just knew that meant I had to unpick and start again because I would never be happy and would never finish it it otherwise :( now it's done, and looking at the end result, I'm glad I did spend the effort in unpicking it :)
ReplyDeleteAw...sorry about the tuck. I've had that happen before too :-( I do have to say though that the bike fabric is fabulous for your triangle quilt!
ReplyDelete