Wideback woes
 

I am so frustrated....I have purchased a length of wideback and am having a world of trouble trying to get it square. I have pulled threads and carefully cut along the channel left from the pulled thread and yet my fabric is still not square. When I lay the backing out I am still getting folds in the backing and I can now see where it seems to be stretched out of shape so despite the thread pull and trim I still have the original problem. When I lift it up and join the selveges and "do the jiggle" I am still having to shift the fabric to get a relaxed drop. Now if I trim this, aren't I mucking up my "squaring"? Could this just be a bad length of fabric? Should I just trim again and not worry about it not being square so long as it lays flat for me? I've been quilting for over 10 years and never had such trouble. Any suggestions would be great...thankyou.

I hope I'm understanding the problem. Can you pull the piece on the diagonal to bring it back into being square? Sometimes that helps. It depends, too, how badly this is out of square but I usually don't worry much about this with quilting. In my days of garment construction, we did have concern for pulling a thread to make yardage square but I don't find that so much with quilting. I don't know what makes the difference. Perhaps because we are stitching/securing the fabric closely to the other layers? But it doesn't seem to make the difference that it did with how garments hung.
Perhaps you can steam press this back into shape. The way fabric goes onto the bolt can pull it out of square.
But, if it isn't bad, I square according to the fold so it is smooth, bring the selvages together and square using the rotary cutter and move on.

I've had some pieces of fabric that wouldn't true up no matter what I did. I think it is from difficulties/tension in the manufacturing process and I can see how it would be even more problematic with the extra width.

I am a believer in prewashing, for many reasons but often it helps get the fibers back in line.

In your case, I would simply do what you can to make the back as smooth as possible and don't worry too much about the straight of grain. For a lot of us older quilters, straight of grain used to be a very big issue. I think though with machine stitching and such, it is more of a hold-over from our hand sewing techniques. After all, we can fussy cut or do all sorts of things like hexes where "straight of grain" is only a concept.

I agree with Iceblossom, that washing could help. Fabric is rolled onto bolts when wet, which makes the fibers distort. Also, the selvedge is much heavier on wideback. Is the selvedge edge measurement shorter than the center measurement? I have had luck with removing the selvedge and zigzagging the edge to prevent fraying.

Are you using this backing on a longarm? My friend and mentor will rip her wideback and attach top and bottom to her rails, then lightly spritz the whole thing with water as she rolls it back and forth. She might have to do this a few times but so far, she's always been able to get it back into reasonable shape.

Do you mean that literally? I don't understand how you could roll a length of wet fabric onto a cardboard bolt without the bolt turning to mush.

bkay

I have stretched out warm backing on a bed and smoothed out the wrinkles. Ask your longarmer if that will be good enough. The deep creases should be out after washing.

I've decided to no longer worry about the straight of grain on backings. I had a piece a few weeks ago that when I tore it (the way I usually find straight of grain) I lost 5" off one edge - had I torn the other side I would have ended up with a trapezoid. No way was that baby going to straighten out so I just used the fold as a guide and cut across. I quilt my own on a mid-arm and haven't really found any difference between squaring up with a rotary cutter to trying to follow the straight of grain.

At fabric distributors I've been to, the fabric comes in big round rolls, like hay. The warehouse then wraps it on bolts to be sold to quilt shops. Never seen it wrapped wet.

I keep a bottle of water with a little white vinegar to remove creases.
Works great.

I agree with the others that recommend washing it. That will remove the sizing that will allow it to relax and settle back into place. And yes, the longarmer can spritz it and roll it back and forth until it squares up.