A Big Quilting Mistake

I made a big mistake while quilting my quilt on a longarm. Here is how I solved it and what I learned in the process.

I made a mistake — can you tell?

I went to my local quilt store to rent the longarm quilting machine and I incorrectly loaded my quilt backing onto the machine. I didn’t realize it until I got to the very end and ran out of space before the quilting was done. Yikes!

This is what it looked like coming off of the longarm:

Here’s what I did - I took the quilt off the long arm and brought it home to figure out with to do. I reached out for some advice. Some people said to just cut the quilt down to where the quilting line stopped. Others said just leave it the way it was. I decided to go with the advice from folks who encouraged me to add some extra quilting lines to fill the space. I ended up using (wrestling?) my domestic machine to add in the missing quilting. It was not ideal but it ended up working out ok.

This is a close up picture of the quilting after I added more quilting on my own:

Here’s what I learned - label your quilt back, whether you are doing the quilting yourself or if you are sending it off to be quilted by a professional. Use a sharpie to write in the selvage (or furthermost edge) “TOP” and “BOTTOM” so it is super clear to everyone. Or you can safety pin a piece of paper with the words written on it.

Also, if this were to happen again, I was given the great advice to follow this video and leave the quilt on the long arm, adding backing while it is still on the frame.

What do you think - did I make a good decision?

Do you have a mistake that you learned a lot from? I’d love to hear about it!