Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Unquilting

I’m finally making progress ripping out the quilting on my En Provence. But first I’ll answer the question Why??!!!

  • When I quilted this back in December it was the first time in a year I had done any long arm work so I was rusty.
  • My thread frequently broke so there are not so great starts and stops in the quilting.
  • I wasn’t able to finish the quilt in one session and had to remove both the quilt and the pantograph from the machine.
  • I considered ripping it all out and sending it out to be quilted when I got home after my day of quilting.
  • I was dreading lining up the panto and the quilt when I finally got around to finishing the quilting.
  • My sister recently bought a computerized long arm machine and I found a digital copy of the pantograph!
  • Although the computer would make lining up the pantograph easier, the differences between what I quilted and what the computer quilted would be clear.
  • It would annoy me every time I spotted the difference in the quilting – not that I would be looking for it.

At first I was working from the top of the quilt, clipping every 4th or 5th stitch and then pulling the bobbin thread.  This was tedious.  Turns out I had started on a side instead of the top or bottom, so it’s no wonder I didn’t get very far after a couple of hour work.  Once I figured that out, I started at the top, clipping along my thread path.  Much faster, but after a couple of evenings I still only had one pass done.

This quilt is BIG – 108″ x 108″ and I had about 72″ of the top quilted. There had to be a faster way.  So I asked in the Quiltville group on Facebook.  Several people suggested clipping the threads between the batting and backing.  I attempted to do that, but even with good lighting (I’m working on my dining room table and we have 5 LED bulbs rated at 800 lumens each) I couldn’t see my stitches to clip. I was also worried about pulling on my batting since it doesn’t have a scrim. I’m using Hobbs Tuscany 100% cotton. But given it took me a week and I had another 7 passes of quilting I had to try something.

I turned the quilt around so I was working from the last quilting I put in.  Turns out you just have to see one stitch and if you have a sharp blade, just touch it while holding tension on the top and batting. That breaks the stitch and the tension on the top and batting pulls the next 3 or 4 stitches on either side out. Needless to say, it’s ripping out much faster now.

The pic at the top of the post is from yesterday before I started up again. I’m down to about 40″ of quilting left.  A couple of times I’ve flipped the quilt over and have cleaned up the threads from the quilt top.  I have lots of help from Butterscotch when I do that. I had my husband video a bit.

I won’t be able to quilt this Saturday, but see no issues getting it quilted and bound in time for the quilt show in September.

One Thought on “Unquilting

  1. Oh, Pam, what wonderful kitty help! Sorry you have the tedious unstiching to do tho…. 🙁

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