Some great ideas on using panels. The panels I find always seem to be long and skinny. I am marking this thread so I can reference it when I do my next panel.

If the panel is too tall and you want to put square blocks around it for borders, use a fairy frost fabric and add spacer strips between the blocks. You can use what ever length you need to make the border as long as you want. You should measure the border around the panel and trim off excess so all sides are even. The panel I bought for a Spiderman quilt the red around the panel was different size on all sides.
I decided to use three blocks on each side and used spacer strips between them. The spacers were different sizes and made to whatever size needed to make it work out. See pic below.
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Love all the examples you gals have posted! I too have a panel that my DD picked out. Its a Wilmington Fabrics print so I found some ideas on their website. So far it is part of my stash. I'll get to it someday. :)

There is a pattern called Sidelights that is available for $8. Personally, I think you could figure it out quite easily without buying the pattern. Here is a link to several pics of completed quilts. https://images.search.yahoo.com/sear...+quilt+pattern

You will see that the panel has been set to the upper left side of the quilt, with sashing/framing and smaller framed fabrics to the right and bottom. Sometimes those smaller framed squares are coordinating pictures, sometimes they are just contrasting fabrics. I've seen several quilts made using this pattern; they look quite nice.

You can also check out medallion quilts over at Blocks of the Week and Month here on the board. Several ladies started out with different sized medallions (panel-like) and then added coping strips or whatever was needed to bring up to size and then used blocks to finish out to a quilt-sized project. Amazing how they all turned out so differently.

Wow! I will never look at a panel the same way again! Thanks for all the ideas! Jcrilley and Feline Fanatic, your examples are exceptional! What a way to elevate a simple panel!

Although I signed on tonight to read and maybe show 2 quilts I did in the last 2 weeks after reading your post I will show you what I did with 2 panels to make a sofa quilt that hubby wanted with the "Wolfs"
well now to post the photo --if nothing shows that means it didn't work for me.

wrong photo --finished this "Hopscotch" pattern for charity last night. will look again for other one.

Ok I did it --amazing . went back over some posts and see that someone else is doing a 'WOLF' panel for gdson.
glad I signed on tonight.

you can find the maker of the fabric and go to their web-site and see how they used it. Thats what I do sometimes. Other times I design my own on graph paper,and size my patterns to fit.