An American in Provence

(before picture)

My wonderful mom spent many hours making a special quilt for my wedding. It was with Provençal fabrics that we bought when they were here for Christmas. She had our monogram embroidered onto a large center square. (I removed our last name in the photo, just for safety) Originally we were going to display it at the wedding reception and have guests write on it, either on the squares on the front side or on the back.
Examples:
http://www.weddingshowergifts.com/photo_quilts/index.shtml#faq

Finally we decided not to, afraid that the ink would bleed through to the other side, etc.

We displayed it at the wedding along with the two pillow cases she had made for us. I finished up the quilting by tying a piece of yarn through each corner. For the final step, cutting off the extra material and sewing on the border, I decided to take it to a tailor as I have no sewing machine.

So I took it to a tailor that works a few blocks away. I should have known better, this is the guy who suggested that we use velcro to bustle my wedding gown. Anyway, I brought it down with the fabric for the edge on Tuesday and explained what I wanted. I was quite clear- I want this cut off and this strip of fabric sewed onto the edge, all the way around. The one thing that I never thought to mention is the one thing that he did.

I returned today and picked it up, 15 euros. I was tired and in a hurry so I didn't take it out of the bag to look it at closely, it looked okay so I returned home. After eating lunch and relaxing a bit, I decided to take it out and admire it. I was examining the edge and noticed something was terribly wrong.
He had sewed the blanket halves together, turning a large square blanket for a bed into a rectangle for a couch blanket! Ahh! Even worse, he had sewed the purple border fabric DIRECTLY ACROSS the middle of the monogrammed square. What was he thinking!? Why on earth would he think that I would want half of our names covered up with this purple strip? Here is my illustration of what it looked like, after. (I was too distraught to take a picture at the time, but seriously it was laughable.) (Imagine puple photoshopped border actually matches)

Oh my god my mom is going to kill me after she spent all this time and money on the fabrics and some two bit tailor who smokes in his shop ruins the quilt.

I quickly headed back to his shop with the quilt rehearsing French phrases in my head. What were you thinking? Who would actually want it to look like this? Where is the back fabric? I am not paying for this! You completely ruined my wedding quilt!

I got there and almost calmly explained that it was not what I wanted. He said don't worry, stop trembling, I didn't cut off the extra material, or throw it away, it is still there, just all sewed together. Fantabulous. So he ripped off the border and showed me. Whew. He said that he did it that way because there was a pin stuck through the middle and he thought that as strange as it seemed, that was how I wanted it. Now, it seems odd to me that a stray pin would make a professional tailor do something like this, but oh well. So he will redo it, and I can pick up Tuesday. Not sure if this going to cost me more. He didn't say anything and I hope not. I guess I forgot to cover the "Don't fold the quilt in half and sew it all together" part in the instructions. Note for next time: cover everything you can think of and give them your phone number with the instructions of "If a fit of madness overcomes you and you decide to just wing it, please call me first."