Re-doing the Letters

The job I had to do yesterday was not a fun one. The lettering on the Easton 300 Anniversary Quilt was fraying around the edges. With so many people working on the quilt, somehow the fabric used for the letters turned out not be genuine ultra suede. The lady that brought it to me to quilt pointed out that the letters were fraying. What do we do? It is intended for the quilt to travel around this year to all of the anniversary celebrations. We thought that as it is handled it would continue to fray.

We decided I would go ahead and quilt it while someone picked up some ultra suede and cut out more letters just a tiny bit larger and I would put them on over top of the fraying ones. Well, just try to find black ultra suede on the Delmarva Peninsula. After some calling around one of the ladies found it in Dover, Delaware. Phyllis went to pick it up on Sunday. They did not have black, it was navy. Now what do we do?

Now remember the quilt needs to be ready for the presentation on April 14th. So after much discussion and looking on the internet, it was decided to use black Kona cotton. Phyllis prepared the letters and turned the edges under with glue stick. She got the letters to me late Monday. I was determined to get the letters on yesterday.

I loaded the quilt onto the longarm again. I placed some of the letters over the fraying ones. I did not like how it looked. Fraying edges were sticking out. I thought I would try removing one letter and see how it looks.

Yes, that is what I needed to do. So I proceeded to remove all of the letters.

I put all of the letters and numbers on with glue stick. Then I very slowly and carefully began to sew the letters on with the longarm. To me this was a slow process, but was probably better than trying to do it on a domestic machine. I am pleased with the turn out and it is definitely better than the fraying stuff.