Guess what this is???

Can you guess (although I suppose the slightly blurry photo doesn't help).  It's what I've been up to this morning... and resulted in the next photo...

You guessed it - unpicking that binding... which I've never actually done before but I suppose there's a first time for everything.

The quilt just wasn't right, and although it was just going to be given away to strangers, I didn't even need to put my name on it - I couldn't leave it in the state it was.  I tried washing and drying it to see if the wrinkles would hide the uglies... didn't work.  Then I tried ironing it to see if once the wrinkles were gone... it would stretch out better... didn't work.  Then I decided to do a few more rows of straight line... to see if that would help - actually, a bit more quilting did make the whole look better - but I kept being dragged back to those awful borders... so me and my quick unpick watched The Smurf movie... and did some damage.

Initially I was going to unpick the whole blessed thing (just be aware the blessed is not the word I'd normally use in these situations).  So once the binding was off, the straight lines through the borders were taken out too... fabric repositioned, lightly sprayed and ironed, then FMQ with relatively small interlocking boxes.

 OK, it's still got a bit of a wave going on... but at least it looks square.  I'll need to trim the borders now to neaten up the bit I'd trimmed off in an earlier episode...

Then I added some FMQing between some of the rows of straight lines.

Probably a better view from the back:

And do you know what - it sort of (with a bit of imagination) sits flat.

I've finished half and had to stop before my eyes fell out, and my arms fell off - which I believe is a quilting condition.  But I need to get it finished for Monday... so it looks like it's going to be a busy weekend.  Hope nobody expects too much housework to get done.

And if you're wondering about the Smurf movie... I really enjoyed it.  It wasn't really a kid movie, there wasn't enough action of the right kind - but it was nice... and I'd watch it again.  Perhaps relaxing with a bowl of chips instead of with a quick unpick.