WIP Wednesdays... Pucker Up!!!

Hate to share my misfortunes, but I just finished quilting my Mother's quilt and when I was done all I could say was "Mother Pucker!!!" I need to write this post so that I can learn from my mistakes. It helps me to "ingrain in the membrane" and work it all out.

Ok, I haven't binded/bound it yet, but here are the pics (laid on a King size bed, but the quilt is Queen):

Puckering below (if you can see it) and some stitches ripped out :(

Binding below. And a kitty that likes to play with it :)

I need to figure out what caused all the puckering. I have some ideas:

1. Trying to baste (spray) on a design wall that is not suited for a quilt of this size.
2. Not spraying it thoroughly because of the size and the design wall limitations.
3. Not checking underneath while free motion quilting to make sure there were no problems (especially since I was breaking thread between every loopy flower design).
4. The quilt was so big and my sewing table so small, there was a ton of adjusting and a ton of overhang causing the baste to lose its hold.
5. Quit trying to rush things and looking for instant gratification.

I could go on and on I am sure. But, I think next time I will just be extra careful to check the back more often. I might even pin some of the outer areas (this is where most of the problems occurred). A nice solution would be to just buy a long arm :) Would probably make a Queen much easier to deal with! I know I was flattening and spreading, but I just did not feel the puckers with my gloves on! And, it happened in about 15 places!!!!!

Anyway, thought I would share. My mind is fluttering with tons of other ideas for fixing or for what went wrong, but feel free to share your thoughts!

I'm linking up at Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesdays!



I also wanted to mention that I have linked up at the "new bloggers" link party. If I reach 50 followers, I'm having a giveaway!

Until next time,

Mike.