A Devastating Failure

Well,
I just want to start this post by saying GO WITH YOUR GUT!
Next,
My January UFO Challenge will probably not be done by the due date of January 31st.  I still might surprise myself.  We will see.
I developed a great design to quilt in the outer border.  It took a few days to get the lines the way I wanted them.  I busily worked.  I had 3 sides done.  It looked great.  I need to spray out the last 2 sides that I just finished.  I sprayed the first, then the second side.  To my amazement, the blue pen color was right on the stitching line.  I sprayed some more but it was not coming out of about 2” wide x 10” long section I had just quilted.  I folded back the quilt,  saw that the water had saturated to the back side, a solid deep green flannel (perfect for a Christmas quilt).  I let the quilt dry and decided I would come back to it later.  As days went on, I tried rubbing alcohol (this works great for grease and Sharpie pens) and Oxi-Clean carpet spray cleaner.  I finally did some research on-line about the blue pens.   I had never had a pen do this to me.  Let me say one more time, after using the pen on the whole quilt, only 2 x 10 section in the stitching line was blue.  I couldn’t understand how the other mirror image side of the quilting wasn’t blue.  Neither was the area to the right or left of the quilted section, or the entire center of the quilt.  The blue was only in THAT section.  After reading the internet and a little coaching from the family, I decided to soak the section.  Maybe I just hadn’t wet it enough.  I took a shoe box size plastic tote and filled it with water and put the section in.  I also had pulled out the dye catchers that I have earlier and put it in the water.  In the quilt went…oh how the water turned that same shade of blue.  Water soluble blue, you know the shade rather bright, almost iridescent.  I stuck a little more of the quilt in the water as the color moved farther across the quilt.  I finally decided to call it quits.  I pulled the quilt out of the water after sticking almost 1 side of the quilt into the small tote.  Let me tell you that I filled and emptied the tote about 4-5 times as the water kept turning THAT shade of blue.  I put the quilt in the tub and went to bed.  The next day, off to the store, bought a new box of color catchers.  I put the quilt in with the washer machine with half the box of color catchers.  I figured it was worth the trouble.  Now, the inner light border was all blue, especially around the stitching.
Then, I had an epiphany.  The blue is not from the pen.  It is from the green back.  Remember when I said “When I sprayed the first time, the blue didn’t come out so I sprayed some more.”  “The blue is exactly on the quilting line.”  “When I turned over the quilt, it (the water)  had saturated through to the back side.” I also realized…I pieced the back.  The great deep green color is only around the outside of the quilt, where I pieced the back.  The plaid fabric wasn’t big enough.  Here are some of the pics.

          

My plan at this point….RIP, RIP, RIP.  I will RIP out the quilting on the inner light border.  I will RIP off the outer borders, and I will RIP all the green off the back. 
This quilt fabric is from our family vacation in Alaska, with my mom and step dad and both girls.  How can I not RIP?  As much as I would like it to R.I.P., I must RIP.  I can say, I have not cried, been very close more than once.  I can say, it will be finished, just not by the end of the month.

Happy Quilting (or RIPPING),
Just Another Quilter,
on just another day.