Renata...Sharpie has a metallic silver that works on dark fabrics. Mine is a fine point but not ultra fine...like
I wish it was !! Maybe in your bigger world...there is one. But I've used it and it seems just fine. I'm glad
this one has worked out !!

Thanks everyone for your frankness, humor and help with this little quilt. I was going to leave it unfinished and make something else until you piped up with your suggestions. Thanks Wendy for the Bondaweb idea--I used Steam-a-Seam 2 Lite and it worked beautifully--there is no evidence of an opprobrium below… although I am sure part of the pleasure of owning one of these little quilts is to be able to admire the perfect stitching on the back, not just the front (well, something for me to aspire to…). I most certainly learned my lesson with this one!

Of course, I really wanted to do a yellow binding that picked up a hint of the orange and I had the perfect fabric, but not enough of it! In fact, I only had about 5"x24" of it. How could I ever make that work… well, I remembered Sharon Peterson's classroom where she demonstrated reversible bindings so I did that rather than a mitered binding and I even have a slice of fabric left over. Go figure!

QUESTION: Normally I would write my information on the back with a black Pigma Micron pen but the backing of my three quilts that I'll be sending to AAQI are mostly dark colors. Is there a suitable light colored Pigma Micron pen that will work on dark backs or perhaps another brand of pen, if a light colored pigma does not exist?


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And there was me thinking
1) smack head against the wall in frustration, then
2) reach for my stilleto & small scissors and work from the back to unpick it.
But you seem to already have an alternative method of hiding the tangle

I agree with the cover it up'ers. I've done it myself and I've seen professional quilters do it too.

Clara

There's hope, I'm happy! Steam-a-Seam is going to become my friend tomorrow... thanks everyone!

Bondaweb, Steam a Seam, pretty much the same thing except that Steam a Seam works better. It is a lovely little quilt and if you do decide t throw it away will you fling it in my direction?

Nobody said to throw it away!!

Funny you should mention that, Wendy. I was just looking at my quilt again. It really is almost impossible to rip the stitches without ruining the quilt totally, but from the front, I am still pretty satisfied with the results. Wasn't familiar with Bondaweb but just looked it up and I would not be adverse to doing that just not to lose the little quilt. I will still try to make another little quilt to redeem myself from bad stitching on the back. After all, practice makes perfect, right? Thanks for a great idea! After all, no quilt police in my neighborhood--if there were, I'd be in jail! I still take on Margo's comment about it serving as a lesson.

I agree with Wendy. Use a fusible web on the back of some pretty fabric. Cover the back side. Iron down well so that it bonds to a lot of the thread work. Square it up and do the binding. Don't sweat it. When the tension is off, only one side looks bad. The fusible will secure the stitches and the piece is saved. That is what I would do. Clara

P.S. Everyone of us has made a blunder from time to time and this one is fixable.

I would bondaweb some fabric over the back to secure the stitches and make a nice firm quilt backing. Then you can still donate it

That was my instinct too, Margo. I'd be too embarassed to put it out there but would feel even worse if someone spent good money on such a badly quilted piece. Thanks for validating my gut feeling. I was just hoping there was a way to rip the stitches out and smooth the fabric because that was the last of that particular fabric and I really liked how it turned out otherwise.

Brutally honest? Count this as a really good lesson about checking tension as you go, and make another one for AAQI. It's a darling quilt, and it's not like you are loosing enough fabric and time involved in a king size quilt!

Okay, I have a dilemma--and I want a brutally honest opinion. I just did the quilting on another AAQI quilt and even though I did a sample to get the tensions right, something awful happened and when I finally turned the piece around to look at the back, it was full of bird nests! :shock: My instinct is that nobody would ever want to purchase a piece full of bird nests on the back, yet I'm afraid of what would happen to the fabric if I ripped all the stitches out, especially since half of it is pebbles. So, rip, don't rip, start over? What would you do? Thanks!

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