Help--My Quilt is Crooked!
 

Hi everyone! I’ve been sewing on and off for over 40 years but only quilting for the last few months and loving it! However, I think I might have been overly ambitious in a recent quilt project. The quilt has 18 10” square blocks with sashing in between them. The blocks are made of ¼ HST (I hope that makes sense). I just finished the quilt top and although the measurements are perfect both vertically and horizontally, it doesn’t fold or lay square—it’s somehow crooked. Out of desperation, I laid it on my tile floor which I know is square and sure enough, about half way down, it starts to migrate to the left. What in the world did I do wrong??

try best press and iron with seam

If all your longer sashing strips are the same measurement, I would think that you had sewed all beginning at the same side and the fabric is stretching a little.

Ohhhh, I have. This is crooked beyond pressing it out....it looks like my dog's hind leg. It's swooshed to the left side by about 1.5"

Did you use corner squares with your sashing strips? If not, it's possible that's where the quilt went off kilter. Corner squares actually keep everything in line when adding sashing, because you match the corner points of the squares on each block. Grab opposing corners and pull it into square to try and block it.

If it's beyond squaring up, the solution may be as simple as taking off the sashing strips where it all starts to go wrong and re-sewing them on. Before sewing them on, put little tick marks on the edges where the corner squares would be if there were corner squares, and let those be your guide to matching to the ends of the blocks. That technique should keep it all straight the same way corner squares do. Good luck, good question here.

Ya know what? Although I haven’t made many quilts, every time I finish one, I realize I’ve learned something. Sometimes I learn something noticeable and sometimes I learn something no one will ever know but me. But I learn and this time is no different.

With this quilt, what I’ve learned is:

1. Just because fabric is in the quilting section doesn’t mean it should be used for quilting
2. Don’t buy fabric just for looks

I think both of those might be my problem. The quilt is for my future son-in-law, a former marine. It’s a patriotic quilt with red satin, deep blue cotton (with little silver stars) and a white fabric with a silver thread running through it. That fabric is a bit stretchy and we know that satin and cotton is not.

I’m going to apply the outside border and finish the quilt anyway and hope that I don’t find a burning rotary cutter outside my front door from the quilt police.:o It isn’t terribly noticeable unless it’s pointed out and I know he’ll love it because so much love went into it.

But I’ve learned!

You can straighten it before you add the border. You've been sewing for years
so it should be easy to do. Just like you make a sleeve fit in an armhole...
baste along the long side (small stitches) and then pull the thread until it
is same length as the other side...even out the excess and add the border
and voila. Hope it's clear.

I made the same decision today with a quilt that turned out less than satisfactory. I don’t think the recipient will notice.

What I learned is that I’ll never make that pattern again. LOL

Try blocking it before adding further ( borders). Just wet it down, force it into shape, and let it dry flat. This will not fix the problem entirely, but will make it much better. A marine is bound to notice a non straight line!

Oh boy... Hadn't thought of that. My daughter is the neat-nik so she'd be the one to fold and put it away (the problem is only visible when folding it) and, luckily, she thinks irregularities in anything are charming. Must be why she loves me so much, lol.

I did tape it down on the floor and steam ironed the troublesome parts. It's drying now. It looks to be a bit better.

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Can anyone shed any light on what I did wrong to begin with to cause this problem? As I said earlier, the red is satin and frays horribly so I did a zig zag after the initial seam was made. (I hope my inner-self slaps me in the head if I ever buy satin for quilting again.)

I had a quilt top that was crooked much more then yours. After quilting, washing, and drying it was never noticed. Not even at guild show and tell and believe me my close quilting friends would have said something about what did you do to make that happen? LOL

I am glad you learned not to use satin again.

I would quilt it up and be done with it.

Very beautiful flaws and all.

I do not worry about perfection in my quilts. If I did I would never finish one.

As far as yours goes, I would not worry if it does not fold square. Quilts are meant to be used and loved, not kept folded up on a shelf. At least the ones I make are meant to be used.

Using 100% cotton in your quilts means the fabric will be malleable. Personally, I don't use anything else.

Please don't stress about your quilt. Use it as a learning opportunity.

Thank you, Jingle. As with most home pictures, it doesn't do it justice. The small square in the middle is a silver foil-looking fabric.

And No! Never again will I use satin! I just got back from a fabric store and, sure enough, there was bolt after bolt of satin right in the middle of the cottons. I was smarter today.

Satin? It might not have been the best choice but I'll bet it is beautiful in this quilt. I can understand why you used it for the "look".

It's possible that your side triangles are a little more or less than precisely 45 degrees, and that could account for the shift. You could check that by placing a square ruler in the corners of the triangles to see if the seam lines veer off one way or another. It would not be hard to correct if that's the problem. It's very attractive, and if it's a lap quilt rather than one to be hung on a wall or covering a bed, the slant will not show up. Stitch678's suggestion to block it makes sense to me, and I absolutely agree with those who said not to stress over it. It will quilt out much better than you're expecting right now.

Editing to add that if those edges are on the bias, that's a big part of the problem. Whether they are or not, you could use a technique from garment sewing called "easing" to bring them in to square. Cut both side borders the same length based on the average measurement from across the quilt. Then pin first at the ends, then the midpoints of both the quilt and the border, and then the midpoints between the earlier pins until the fabric is evenly distributed. If there is a lot of gaping between any of the pins you may have to make a running stitch to gather the fabric evenly along the length. The idea is to get a very gradual distribution of the fabric.

It's a beautiful quilt top. I'm sure it will be loved and admired. We all get lessons all the time! Enjoy the process. Quilting keeps my brain working like no other thing can. Love the adventure it gives me. Hope you can too!

I don't know much about the quilting process. The couple of small quilts I've done, I've started at the center and worked my way out to the edges. Anyway, I got to wondering if there's something that could be done in the quilting process that might help to skew it back in the right direction?

Jim