I thought I was done, but then noticed that there are more places that I need to fill in with quilting. I sewed the top sleeve on and hung it to see how it would hang. It did not hang flat. So I sewed on the bottom sleeve and there was still wiggle along the sides. Next thing to do besides swear was to tack the facing through the backing and some of the batting. I’ve done that along the bottom and the left side. No wobble now. I still have to do the right side, but it’s hard on my hands forcing a needle through all the that thickness….fabric, fusible, batting. I had to take a break. Here’s some photos before I do a bit of analysis to try to understand the wiggles. The slats of wood are too large because they are from another quilt that was hanging in this location. These photos were taken before I got rid of the wiggles.
Gravity is always going to win this battle. Fabric hanging on a wall is going to be affected by gravity. It can be controlled somewhat, but not 100%. So what did I do wrong? First off this quilt hung on my design wall for more than 2 years. I’m sure gravity caused a lot a sagging and stretching in that time. So there was already distortion which would lead to wiggles. Another issue was the sky fabric. While it is a beautiful fabric it is much thinner than the other fabrics in the quilt especially since they also have a lot of fusible in them. So I’m sure that would lead to wiggles. A mistake that I made was to quilt the sky scrapers and then eventually quilt the sky much later. In order to get the sky between the buildings to be flat with no kinks I had to press and distort it somewhat. That was probably not a good idea. I noticed that the sky wiggled somewhat when the quilt was lying on the floor. Adding the sleeve and the plank of wood forced the top of the quilt and the sky to be flat. Then the wiggles moved further down into the quilt.
Lastly some of the buildings are quilted closer together and contain more layers of fusible than others and that could contribute to the problem. I did soak the quilt and let it dry flat and that usually takes care of that issue, but maybe not here.
At any rate tacking the facing through the batting has helped a lot and most of the wiggle is gone. It did upset me for a few days, but now I’m over it.
Thanks for reading.
Current photo of the cats….
Chris
Well, I think it is beautiful and amazing! Awesome that you are so professional about it to make it perfect to your standards. I tend to get sick of working on something towards the end and also sometimes the vision in my head hits the reality of my skill level! Edith
ReplyDeleteUnderstitching the facing might have helped with the wiggle, or maybe you did that, but didn't mention it?! The finishing seems endless! Laceflower
ReplyDeleteYou have poured your heart and soul, not to mention creativity, time, and labor! to create this masterpiece. It will all be worth it once you let go of all the fixing details encountered along the way. It is magnificent!
ReplyDeletePat
I think you did a great job on it. I didn't really see any wrong. The quilt looks fantastic.
ReplyDeleteThe bigger the quilt, the harder it is to have it finish nice and even and flat against the wall. I think you've rightly identified the many issues your variety of construction methods led to. I don't usually do a full soak, finding that a good steaming takes care of most of the wiggles. But often a bit of stabilizing stitching along the edges as you are doing is the only thing to eliminate them.
ReplyDeleteCe quilt est juste magnifique , et j'admire votre persévérance BRAVO
ReplyDeleteMarianne
I think it looks great, but I understand your frustration abour it not laying right, not that I can see it. I had one quilt that gave me a lot of grief and I spritzed it while on the floor. What really got it to lay flat was to put a sleeve in the bottom with a flat metal rod. It's on my wall now, very flat and unpuckered.
ReplyDeleteGo look at the pictures of this year's Quilt National. You should enter yours for the next show. It is every other year.