Block and Tackle Ben

This may be the most important part of finishing a wall quilt. It's a bit scary too, not because you'll hurt anything, but because even when you've been careful to evenly distribute quilting, this is the time you find out if you did a good job. If you didn't, blocking helps but may not solve the entire problem. I have a piece at Houston in November that got an Honorable Mention which is better than I thought as "My Kind Of Dragon" could NOT be blocked as flat as what I felt would be competitive. I was right. Live and Learn!!

So... I block my quilts once for sure (at this stage prior to binding or facing), and sometimes even after all the finishing work in complete. So.. here's how I go about it. First, I'll be doing this on a padded tabletop, but I've also done this atop a sheet over carpet, or atop a hard bed covered with beach towels.

In this case, Ben is smaller that the wood table for which I had a big board ironing board made... not really for ironing.... but for this stage.. blocking! It drops on atop my work table. It is padded with batting and covered with a strong cotton. Once Ben is trimmed/ relieved of excess batting and backing, I lay him atop the padded board and spray him pretty wet... then the game is "smoosh" it flat and pin on all edges before allowing the whole thing to air dry.

He got really dark when wet.... I even felt obliged to add pins to his snout area. He looks like he is being treated by eastern medicine needle therapy.