Directional Fabric that is Printed off kilter :(
 

I need some advice. I’m just in the process of cutting out a quilt from a kit I bought. The quilt kit picture shows the “lines” of the fabric running horizontally in the quilt wherever it’s used and it looks good. However, the printing on the fabric that came in the kit is skewed so much I don’t know of a way to cut it other than cross grain, fussy cutting, that will keep the lines even remotely level so that it doesn’t look bad. What would you do with it? Here’s a picture of what I mean. I need to cut 49 pieces 3”x10.5” with the lines running the length of the piece. If you envision the WOF folded, the other side of the fold isn’t as wonky. Even if I cut it so the lines run vertically, they’ll have a drunken �� look to them. Thanks in advance...
Kathy

first of all, is it printed correctly according to the selvedge? If it is, I think the problem is how the bolt was wound after printing and while the fabric was wet. You see a lot of this with panels. You can do a couple of things before trying to cut. You can wet down the fabric--you don't have to 'wash' but just wet it down and throw it in a dryer. That may be enough to restore the proper lines. You could also 'block' the fabric into proper alignment by taping one side to a table and dampening the fabric and pulling it back into square (according to the printing) taping all around and letting it dry.

If the printing is off, just cut with the printing and forget about straight of grain. And if the printing is off but is still skewed, then dampen and pull the printing into line, tape and let dry. Hope this helps.

Okay looked at your pics again. I would definitely cut according to the pattern and only one layer at a time.

The first thing I would do is contact whoever you bought the quilt kit from a tell them about it. Other than that, I don't know what would be the best way to handle this. You would think they would have notice that when they were cutting the kits.

I think the kits are cut and packaged overseas. This was the worst cut in the whole quilt kit and it’s 2 3/4 yards of fabric. I have considered contacting the seller.

GingerK, thanks for your advice. The whole piece is a waffly, stretched mess I think. I best pressed it to start as it was so wrinkled and today after I squared one edge I couldn’t get it to lay flat on that edge I just cut. I considered washing it, but none of the rest of the quilt fabric has been pre washed. But I guess I could wet it and dry it and see what happens. I think I’ll contact the seller and see if they have any more fabric, of which I’m not optmistic. I would say it’s not especially high end fabric :(.

I just cut a bunch of fabric that was about the same. I did fussy-cut, one layer at a time.

I tell my beginning piecing students that, "fabric works with the law of displacement. If there's a little more on one side, and a little less on the other side, it will even itself out."

I run into this often because I like fabric with stripes, and cut following the pattern. I will open it up and make the first cut, then fold lining up that first cut and not worry about what the selvages are doing. Then I square the sides with the first cut. I don't worry about it being a bit off grain. It will only be a serious problem if you don't have enough because it was a kit - then I'd contact the seller.

If you pull out one horizontal thread (as close to the cut edge as possible) it will tell you whether the fabric is printed crooked or wound on the bolt crooked. If it is printed wrong the only solution is to fussy cut and hope for the best in terms of grain distortion. If it is wound on the bolt so that it is crooked, pressing on damp of wet yardage using a straight edge to assure accuracy will straighten it. That is time consuming but worth the effort. I would not like to include a fabric like that in most cases.

I think I would look for a replacement piece. Doesn't have to be that exact one. I worked in a quilt shop and there were plenty of crooked printed fabrics out there. Yours with the stripes accentuates it. Drives me crazy. Panels are the worst. I know some of it can be ignored, but I have a hard time with that. I will watch what you did for a solution.

Kathy, the only kits I've bought are from Craftsy and if I ever had a problem they were quick to fix it. I hope you can get a resolution to this. Very frustrating for sure.

The other thing I notice with this fabric is you mentioned cutting 3"x 10 1/2" pieces. It looks like if you want each piece of stripes to line up with the others, you will need to skip some fabric between strips. (the lines are not printed 3" apart) Will that cause a problem?

I mention this because recently I made a kit where the illustration of the finished quilt was doctored to make the print come out nicely when in reality, there was no way to make it look like the picture.

I think I used this exact same fabric recently. It looks weird if the lines aren't straight. I ended up cutting it going straight on the lines. Since yours is in a kit, hopefully there's enough fabric to cut it out straight.

To anyone following... so I pulled a horizontal thread as suggested...great idea forgotten from home ec class ;-). Here’s a pic. So if you can see it, the print is not running true with the grain or thread pull. The kit is indeed a Craftsy kit. I have contacted them and just received an email back that they will see if they have more of the fabric and get back to me. I have a navy piece in the same kit that is printed just fine. I think I’ll end up fussy cutting as best I can. I’d be happy if I can just get the pieces cut so they are all just running level side to side and not listing off kilter. I’m not concerned with there being exactly even spacing of the lines within the cut pieces as that is way too close to perfection than I’m interested in doing :). As far as doctoring the pictures, I suspect it’s the designers shot if the quilt from EQ where the spaces have been filled with a copy/paste like process and it just looks like they’re all perfect. At least that’s what I’ll go with ;-).

Oh my gosh!! That is really out of kilter. But it looks like the stripes are relatively straight to each other, which should make fussy cutting easier. It will be interesting to find out what Craftsy does about the oopsie. Their customer service is usually top notch.

Unfortunately, with today's fabric, this is often the case. You can try washing it and drying it flat (basically blocking it). In my experience, this will not 'fix' it. It has been printed wrong. But, your pieces are small enough that you should be able to cut them so the lines are straight. The grain lines shouldn't be that much of an issue on pieces only 3" wide. I have pretty much given up on long striped fabric unless I can cut it diagonally or at least wedged so the lines are less obviously printed wrong. Almost every day at work I run into this issue when cutting fabric for folks. I always point it out before I cut it so they can change their mind if it will be a problem.