Swag-a-Rama Update

Well, I just couldn't let this go out with my name on it. For those of you just joining this rant, a customer brought me an intricately-pieced quilt in which she wants much ruler-work and continuous curves using 3 different blues. Ah, oh yeah, the backing is white. Some of the CC work is in star points which are less than an inch long. And the quilting pattern is for a hand quilter. $%#!@

She is a very nice lady so I eased her into the bad news. I called her and explained that:
-- the dark thread on the white background was pretty "stark".

-- The straight lines were ok but their placement left some border seams with no quilting (thus the dreaded pop-up after washing).

-- the navy blue thread continuous curve "inside" 1-inch long star points and "inside" the 1.5 inch by 2 inch flying geese is cleary visible on the back and shows every wobble and seam crossing as I move from star-to-star or goose-to-goose.

-- the stacked swags in the pillowtuck look like Barnums tent at the end of a season.

She laughed....she hasn't seen it yet. I also told her to bring her nitro-glycerine tablets.

Of course, we will work thru it. It will be on my machine for way too long. I'll go over alternate quilting ideas. I'll be ripping those navy blue stitches out until Valentine's Day. I should just cut my losses and pay her to take it back.