The real story of the mistake

You might have read my blog post over on Quilty Pleasures Blog about the Mandarin Express quilt I made in red, black and white for the scrap squad. In it I gave the illusion that I caught my mistake while it was a top. Not so. This is the picture I took of it for the blog:
Do you see it?  The offending section? Try the right end of the second row of stars . . . .Ah, now you see it. Note that it is entirely quilted, binding in place, and hanging for its final picture. I did not see this until posting it as the last picture in the Quilty Pleasures blog.
My DDH (double dear) was kind enough to Photoshop a correction of the quilt in time for me to meet my deadline.
This, however, is how the quilt was actually finished.

The first step was to carefully rip out the quilting, leaving as long tail as possible to each line. I was fortunate that all the edges here are turned under already. The hardest part was actually finding a stitch to start ripping out the piece. I now have increased my stitch length.

I then had to tie off each line of quilting, bury the knots, and trim off all the threads. I had used a slippery, shredding, beautiful thread to quilt with, but it didn’t like all this additional handling.

I then set the piece back in place and pinned it well with applique pins (short).


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This was my setup of appliqueing back the piece. Ott light with 3x magnifier. I tried to put my stitches into the same holes the machine made, but I didn't use every hole – I can’t applique that small.
Now I needed to re- quilt that part. There is no way to reload this on Black Bart (Nolting) and actually line it up with the Circle Lord boards to do this. I did it on my DSM.

I set the machine up and started, 
 then was quickly reminded that Superior threads like topstitch needles as the thread shredded, again. After I changed the needle it was perfect.

Since this was near the edge, I used a walking foot to  connect some of the less curved circles. You can see that I drew them in, connecting the lines from the tie-off threads.



I switched to free motion to finish it. I did tie-off and bury all these thread ends as well.
The quilt now looks like the Photoshop version. I also added a hanging sleeve, and since DH was available to help, it’s now hanging in my hallway for everyone to admire. My daughter tells everyone it is her new quilt – maybe in a few years, but I need to enjoy it first.

My design wall is still a secret scrap squad project, one with lots of spotlight patches – lots of points to match. Here’s one block:
It’s nearly ready for Black Bart. My wonderful DH made and installed a switch on Bart that will allow me to lift the Circle Lord stylus from the front of the machine, so I can control the stitches when it moves. It's patterned after the one on the Circle Lord site. I’m excited – I’ll let you know how it works out.
Happy Quilting,
Becky