Pleat on back!!! Help!!

[Sharonarooni]

Hi,

I am working on an appliqué quilt and realized

I have an area on the back with a pleat. Oh yay.

So I picked out a quarter of the block and am wondering,

is it possible to starch and steam an area on the back

to ease the extra fabric back in? It is maybe a centimeter of extra fabric

in an area of about three inches. Does that make sense?

I really hate to unquilt the entire 26 inch block.... But I

will if I have to. Sigh.

Any help would be very much appreciated!!

Sharon

[ffq-lar]

I'm trying to imagine the best way to access the back side to treat it. Unloading seems the only way and I guess if you're using zippers you can give it a try. If you don't have zippers attached, unloading and trying to reload correctly might cause more issues than it solves. If you haven't quilted farther south than your problem area, flipping up the top and batting to get at the bad area might work. Make sure you don't over-heat the batting which can cause melting or felting. As you steam, take care you don't dampen the top to guard against bleeding of fabric.

 

Before you try any of that, maybe try pin basting the area. That works on the top so careful pinning of the entire bad spot may help. Pin through the top into the center of the fullness---this might be a two-person job so I hope you can recruit a helper. Then work your way around the area, pinning every inch or so. With luck you can distribute the fullness and quilt without puckers.

[Sharonarooni]

Thank you, Linda!

I ended up basting it one stitch at a time to work in fullness and then restitched

the border area. I will now redo the echo quilting I had done.

There is an itty bitty pleat on that narrow border stitching, but it

is almost nonexistent. I think as I quilt that narrow border it will work in the

extra fullness and it will be good. I'll point it out to her and give a discount if necessary,

but I think this is best case scenario. Sheeeeesh!!! I need to ALWYAYS remember to

look underneath!!!!

Sharon