Aperiodic - an oops and a fix

Do you remember this beautiful Aperiodic quilt that Marlene made?  Marlene was the original pattern tester for her daughter Janice's pattern design.  After Marlene got the binding on she realized that there was an error in the placement of two blocks.  When Marlene emailed to tell me this news I scoured the pictures I took and struggled at first to find the error.  Can you see it?  The picture is below is the after it was all fixed.

I'm not sure how many of us would undertake what Marlene did to correct the mistake.  I didn't think it was very noticeable at all, but Marlene couldn't unsee it, and she and her daughter were shocked they didn't see it in all the checking before the quilt originally came to my studio.  Marlene and I agreed that because of the original quilting design, fixing this and restoring the quilting was realistic.  Marelene is not afraid of a little extra work, so she forged ahead and I like a challenge every once in awhile so I agreed to join in on the journey.

The first thing Marlene did was to trace the quilting design in the areas where she was going to remove the blocks.  (I hadn't thought of this originally but it really made my part of this operation easier.)

Marlene's next task was to carefully rip back the quilting stitches and tie off and bury the thread past the area she was going to remove and replace. After that she carefully removed the offending block and hand stitched the correct one back in place.   Marlene does beautiful hand applique, so this skill was definitely in her wheel house.

 

Now it was my turn.  The quilt was completely finished with binding, and one of the areas that need quilting was right against the binding so how was I going to load it back on my frame?

I didn't need to quilt near the top edge so I was able to load that side back on just using my red snappers just below the binding seam.  It was a tight fit, but it worked.

I basted a scrap piece of fabric to the binding along the bottom so that I could attach it to my frame and quilt right up to the binding seam.

I used the tracing Marlene provided to mark the quilting pattern back on the quilt top using an air erasable pen and chalk. (This was an easier option than trying line up the paper pantograph and work from the back of the machine.)   I then stitched and connected the quilting sections.  There were quite a few starts and stops as it was bits an pieces of multiple pantograph rows.

I was very pleased with the results.  Once the marking lines were removed it was very hard to tell where the surgery and restitching took place.  

Now Marlene can just enjoy her beautiful quilt without seeing things she doesn't want to see!