Off kilter panel - what to do to make it useful?
 

I recently purchased a "Harry Potter" panel. I found out too late that I should have looked at more than Harry on the panel. It is off kilter - like it was stretched on the bias, which leaves it in a kind of large diamond shape.

I want to use it to make a quilt for my 20 year old grand daughter, who grazes 6' tall. The quilt has to be at least 60" x 80" when complete.

I wet the panel and stretched it so that it would take on the correct rectangular shape, which helped quite a bit. It's gone from being +/- 4"off to about 1.25 off. I added some very thin stabilizer to ensure that it doesn't revert back to original shape.

But it is still off kilter. I don't expect that to be a problem while I'm piecing the top, but, since it seems to me that the 1.25" off will increase as I add each row to the quilt. Then I would have to deal with it when quilting, and I suspect that the quilt will present challenges as it is quilted.

What I am thinking of doing is adding a wedge on opposite ends/sides of the quilt to square up the quilt top. I'm not sure it is the best solution, or for that matter, a solution at all. Then the question is: -

1] Do I do insert the wedge in the first border? Seems to me that this might cause problems greater than or equal to the initial problem, but I can't explain why.

2] Do I insert the wedge only on the last border?

I am leaning toward inserting the wedges pn the final border for two reasons: a) I know I only have to square up and insert the wedges once, b) seems like this would be the simplest and most efficient way to do it.

Note that (b) also translates to I'm lazy and don't want to have to add more than 1 set of wedges to the quilt. I might be better able to make it a design choice with (b) as well, as I could shape the wedges to look lightning bolts.

So which do you think is the better option for squaring the quilt? If you know of a better option, please share it with me!

The best thing to do is to add the wedges to the panel first, making the entire piece square (or rectangular). Being off by 1.25" is not too bad. If you make this first border fairly large, it may not even be noticeable.

There are many kinds of "wonky" log cabin blocks ... that start with a not square / off-square OR square center and then add "wonky" strips until it is ultimately squared up a the end. I think this would really lend itself to a Harry Potter theme...maybe doing the logs so the colors give it a spiral formation.
I probably say this way too often..... but since it's where i go for inspiration myself.....Google "wonky log cabin blocks" and check out the "images of" site. The pictures will explain better than i am for sure.
Good luck.

I do not know what the panel looks like---but I often just cut off the borders and then square up the picture in the middle. Then add my own borders. I think the wedge idea is great also.

Given the Harry Potter theme, the possible multiple wedges sounds really cool! Of course you did say you only wanted to do one set of wedges. . .

I would treat it like a crazy hexagon, add narrow strips on all sides deliberately off kilter, then once a few rows done then trim to either a square or rectangular block and work from there.