Fix Wonky Borders Wonky Borders Thoughts Wonky Borders Comments
I have received several comments, responses and questions about the Wonky Borders Tutorial pages. As promised, I have posted them below. Note: They are in no particular order.
If you have any comments please send me an email at longarmu@aol.com. I will respond and then post your comments here.
About my customer - this is a customer I have worked with over the last few years. She brings me about 1 quilt a year. In the last few years she had some health / orthopedic challenges and is now in a wheel chair. I went to her hone to pick up the quilt and I didn't have the space to lay the quilt out to fully check the condition of the borders.
In the past, I have not had any issues with the borders she put on any quilts. All the other quilts I have quilted for her were not this large. (This quilt is 106 x 106 inches.)
Because of all of this, I chose NOT to charge her extra for fixing the borders. (I didn't see the problems and I didn't anticipated any problems.)
What if .... I did decide to charge her for fixing the borders?
Generally, I look at the problem and come up with a fee for fixing it and then just add this "fixing fee" to my quilting labor price. I don't have a set "fixing the borders fee." Nor do I have that fee posted anywhere in my studio.
For a Queen Size quilt I would probably add an extra $50, for a King Size quilt I would add an extra $75. If it turns out that the borders were an "easy fix" I could then reduce this price and pass it along to my customer.
Most of the time I don't say too much to my customer about fixing the borders when I intake the quilt.
If I say something like "I've noticed a few border issues and I'll fix that for you when I'm working on your quilt. I've also added a few extra $$ to the cost to do this." My customer may / would respond with "Leave the borders like they are - don't charge me extra."
Then I am back to quilting the quilt with bad borders - which is what I am trying to avoid.
I prefer to "do the work" and let her know AFTER the quilt is done that I had to work on the borders.
Will I check out the borders on each and every quilt this customer brings to me in the future? Absolutely!
I would give her printed instructions on how to apply borders for future quilts but what if she already has more than a few quilts that are pieced (with bad borders) that she wants you to quilt. I doubt she will fix the already pieced quilts.
I also feel that if I make too much of a fuss about her borders, she won't come back to me.
My choice is to be a bit low key about the borders, not make a huge issue of it and just do it!
Your choice may be different - and that is all right! You are the Queen (or King) of your quilting universe and you, as Queen or King, can do what you want!
Patricia writes:
So how did you deal with the customer on this? Tell them, ask them, charge them?I've found piecing errors (upside down flying geese unit for example) and called to see if this was intentional or not and did they want me to fix it. The border thing is so common and I have fixed bad cases before. I also have the same problem with pieced backs and this is harder to deal with because the pleats that are hidden from view when they happen and I don't always see them until it's too late.
Cindy's response:
See what I wrote above about the borders. If there is an upside down block, etc., in the body of the quilt I just leave it as is and quilt it.
Pieced backs are a whole different issue. And yes, I have taken a backing seam out and re-sewn it if needed. If the backing has many pieces or I can see obvious problems, I will write on the Customer Worksheet "possible / probably pleats and or puckers in the backing due to _________________ (describe the problem - many seams, poorly pieced seams, etc.)" The customer MUST sign and date the worksheet before I will work on their quilt. If they don't, the quilt goes home with them. This will "cover your butt" in this type of situation.
Melissa writes -
Thank you for the Wonky Borders post and information. I recently had two separate quilts from otherwise excellent quilters that had extremely full borders. The first was a solid piece that I should have removed and reapplied. It did get puckers. The second was an extremely pieced border, so there wasn’t a way to trim it down because it would have lost the design. It was an edge to edge quilting design that I had to baby sit the whole time. Not so much fun. With your permission I will make the information about borders available on my web site too. Thanks again!
Barbara writes -
Good techniques and procedures. I hope you included your time in the bill to the customer. That's how I handle 'fixes' and people seem to understand. Photos certainly help, but it still takes some delicacy to voice the implied criticism when describing the need to fix their "error".
For un-bordered quilts that are out of square, or even for out-of-square centers with wonky borders (double whammy), I'd be interested in hearing more from you ! As my mentor told me, we can't quilt in 3 dimensions!
Doreen writes -
I love your article on how to fix wonky borders. That is exactly how I would go about it also. That makes me feel really good that I am thinking correctly! ha ha
One question, when you run into this problem and do this for a customer, how do you charge that? Do you charge by the hour or by the seam? Also, how much??
Cindy responds - See above
Shelley writes -
This was a great article Cindy and good to see the photos of what you were explaining. Now I will know what to do in the future!
Kathy writes -
I think the time it takes to fix the borders is well worth it in the end. By not fixing it you have the frustration of trying and fighting something you know won't work while producing a quilt you are not happy with. By fixing the problem, you have made a customer happy, and good work speaks for itself.
I would have told the customer what I did and why I did it. She went to all the trouble to make it, and having it turn out well is worth it. She learns how to make a top better and you look like the hero. Mind you if she did it again I would charge her by the hour to fix it.
Jody writes -
Thank you for the illustration of a bad/wonky border and what to do. I have had a few, and always wonder if I should be the one to fix it, or use it as a teaching moment, and let the quilt maker learn from her mistake. Either way can be time consuming, but the end result IS worth it.
Leeanne write -
Thank you Cindy. Just yesterday I watched a Utube video of someone quilting a wonky border worse than this. They did take time to ‘ease’ in the fullness, but in my opinion it was a ‘dogs breakfast’!! I would not have been happy to have my name as the quilter against this particular quilt. It never looks good for the quilter. I have on several occasions like you removed borders, re-measured, cut and re-attached, at the expense of my customer. Then end results are a lovely straight flat quilt and a happy customer!
Sherry writes -
I try very hard to square the quilts the best I can when I quilt them for my customers. I don’t always think to check the squareness of the quilts before I load them as most customers do a pretty good job. I do a quick check to get a width and length, usually from the center. I then load the quilt and check the top width with the middle width to come up with what I try to keep the width of the whole quilt. I like to float the tops. I don’t worry so much about the length except to try and keep the quilt square as I quilt it by following each row as go. I use a carpenters laser square and a piece of round elastic. The elastic runs parallel to the belly bar and over the quilt top so I can line up the rows to it. I take the laser on the front corners at the quilt edge and elastic and square up the sides to the elastic and make sure the width is constant. That way I keep it squared as I roll it.
Well, I got a customers quilt that is 2.5″ wider at the bottom than the top. I actually had quilted about 2/3 of it before I noticed that all of a sudden it was getting larger starting with two rows and the borders from the bottom. I decided there was no way I could quilt in 2.5″, so I took it off and returned it to the customer to fix. It took her several months and then she couldn’t figure out what was wrong to fix. She must have taken off the border and put it back on was all. Anyway when I got it back it was still 2.5″ wider.
I decided to fix it myself this time. It ended up that I had to take out a little of my quilting to do it right, but have just about got it back together. I don’t know if the customer will be happier, but I certainly will be. I'm not a fancy quilter, but I don’t want to make it look like I was the one that made it so “wonky”
Thank you for your “Wonky Borders” article as it makes me feel much better that I fixed it.
Jan writes -
I love your article about Wonky Borders. What I have done that works for me is float the top and pin across the quilt top and bottom of the quilt showing in the frame . As I quilt I add a little downward gentle pressure around the hopping foot it quilts the area without any puckering. Works great when quilting a T-shirt quilt, also!
If you have any comments please send me an email at longarmu@aol.com. I will respond and then post your comments here.
Fix Wonky Borders Wonky Borders Thoughts Wonky Borders Comments