Extra friendly border

There was some curiosity about how I would correct the tucks on this quilt so I thought I'd show you.  This is what the border looked like before.  There is a full two inches of extra fullness in the border along this side.  Usually I can quilt a design that makes all the extra fullness nearly unnoticeable but not with this quilt. 

As you can see there are some really deep tucks in there and lots of wrinkles.  Why didn't I remove the border and fix it?  Why didn't I give it back to be fixed by the owner?  Well, it's always been my policy to quilt the quilt in the condition it's brought to me.  If its wrinkled, it gets quilted wrinkled.  If the seams are coming apart they are quilted that way.  If it has lots of fullness, it is quilted anyway.  It's not my job to remake a customer's quilt unless I'm paid to do so.  If they are happy with the way it's made then I'm happy to quilt it just "as it is" when it's left with me. 

Here, I've flipped the quilt around on the machine.  I have my zipper leaders set up so I can do this.  The ending edge becomes the beginning edge.  The left side is now on the right side because I'm right handed and it's easier to work on it from the right.  I lift up and pull on the top with my left hand then cut the threads from inside between the top and the batting using my right hand.  I use a seam ripper for this.  It's much easier than picking out one stitch at a time from the front.

My thoughts are.... if it absolutely must have a tuck, then it should be a tuck that's less noticeable.  I fold the fabric and sew it down like this.  This way it looks like a seam in the border rather than a quilter's mistake.  I did remove the seam on the right after I took this photo and made it look a little better.  It now looks like the one on the left.  See how it looks like a seam?  I used the quilting machine and sewed right at the edge of the fold with mono thread.  The seam line will show on the back of the quilt but most people with wonky quilts don't care about the back. 

I was asked once why I don't refuse to quilt the ones with issues like this one.  It's like this, about 90 to 95 percent of the tops I see are quilts with an issue or two.  If I refused to quilt all of those, then were would my income come from?  After enough refusals, my reputation as a quilter would soon come into question.  Several of my customers are handicapped so making any quilt top is quite an achievement for them.  I am not a quilt critic nor a quilt judge so I'm not qualified to say what should make the topper happy unless I'm teaching a class.  I treat every quilt that comes into my house as if it's "the next big quilt show winner" and its my job to do the best quilting on it that I am able.... no matter how it's actually made.  After all, someone put their heart into creating the quilt and someone is gonna love it when finished.   Now there's only one thing left to do and that's to go back to the place where the stitching ends and do the design over again.

Here is the area stitched again.  It's not perfect but certainly looks much better than it did before.

I will flip the quilt back around the way it should be to finish the rest of the quilting.  This one may not get it done for a few more days.  Yard work still to be done.  Planting time is getting here too quick.