Help with borders and panels

[quiltingangel]

Hi Ladies, I recently bought a panel 'The 12 days of Christmas'. I just want to add borders around it, but it seems the panel is not straight. I have found this to be true with other panels as well, 'Angels Among Us'. I would really appreciate any suggestions to help these turn out. Thanks

[Evie]

I would put an extra wide border on it, then square it up to whatever dimension you want it to be.

I made a rose panel quilt and put borders on it. After I washed it, you couldn't tell it was perfectly straight. If you want me to, I will try to find the picture that I posted over in the photo forum.

[Evie]

I bumped the photos for you over in the Photo Forum. It's called "Rose Panel Quilt."

[Granma2five]

Excerpted from one of my books on working with pillow panels:

"Another way a pillow panel might not be square is that the fabric is printed off-grain. That would mean that the panel corners are not square even when cut on a specific line.

Use a hot iron with steam or a spray water bottle. Hold on to the panel at the corner that needs to be squared and pull in the direction that it needs to go to be square while pressing with the steam iron or pressing after having sprayed the square to dampen. The steam combined with the pulling action moves the threads and helps to stretch back into a square position."

This could certainly be applied to rectangular panels. Unfortunately, this seems to be a wide spread problem. Best of luck to you.

[TheKid]

I have used the stretching and steaming method more than once. I hate that it is not straight. Evie suggestion of the wide border works great also. It keeps the eye away from the grain line.