AliKat

Perhaps before you cut the wave you could put 'registration marks' along the wave so you would know where to meet the wave edges when you rejoin the wave.

ali

hperttula123

That was going to be what I would suggest. I bet cutting a straight line would be easier too. Sorry your having issues with it. I wouldn't know what else to suggest.

DawnFurlong

I had read about putting the registration marks along the edges of the wave - but it didn't seem necessary since I marked the top and bottom - and it seemed obvious what should meet where with the curved edge. I could tell where it should go - but it was like it was stretched out somewhat. So the batting met up nicely for about halfway down the length - and then it didn't. At least that was my thinking at the time.

I did start quilting on the one side where I added the batting back in. I am happy to say that it went better than I expected. I went slowly and smoothed, smoothed, smoothed. I am still working from the center out.

I think that if I ever decide to try this again, I would either cut the batting straight or do a very gentle wave. I would also make sure I stopped quilting uniformly in a line a good 6 to 8 inches away from the edge of the batting (kind of got lost as I was quilting the center and was turning the quilt around - so where I stopped relative to the edge of the batting was not uniform. That combined with the extreme wave I cut is probably the biggest part of my problem).

Also, I will tape the backing down before I add the batting back to the sides. Not sure why I didn't do that for the first side. I did when I originally laid the whole batting out (before I cut it into thirds). That alone should help the process of smoothing the batting down, and easing in any stretch or discrepancies to the fit.

And I'll add this all to my mental notebook of things I learned not to do when quilting!!!

DawnFurlong

Okay, so thought I would post an update as to how this is going.

Adding the batting back to the other side was not near as bad. For starters, I taped the backing down. I didn't do that for the first side because I was only dealing with a small portion of the quilt - and I have done similar size layers without taping the batting down and it has worked. But then again, I normally start with the batting laid out, smooth the top over it, then peel back the top to spray the batting for basting. Slightly different procedure. And I am usually on the carpet, which helps hold things. Different on a wooden floor.

Then I laid out my batting, easing it in, being very careful not to stretch it. I started from the center out to the ends with the iron on tape. Then I pulled back the batting and sprayed only a small section to begin with, down the length of the quilt, and carefully smoothed the batting over it while kneeling on the completed side of the quilt (so I was behind the batting smoothing it forward over the taped down back). I did 2 more sections this way, then did the same for basting the top down to the batting.

And while I won't say that it was fun, it wasn't the torture I felt it was the other night. I didn't get frustrated, and it went much faster. But I caused most of my own grief because of the way I chose to do things the first time around. After all of that, I would consider splitting the backing again in the future on a larger quilt - since I have a better idea about what to do and not do.