bearisgray

At first glance, many prints appear to be all-over or tossed prints.

But, after they have been cut for a border and sewn on - then one notices that there were definite lengthwise repeats in the fabric.

Three of them more or less matched - and then there was the fourth one.

So, I've learned to do sort of a "squint look" - sometimes the "stripes" show up.

I became aware of this from a quilt on a Quilter's Newsletter Magazine - the border had big roses on it- three of the borders looked planned - maybe the maker ran out of fabric and decided to "make do" with what she had left.

cathyvv

Very true. I do the same.

juliasb

I too am guilty of altering things on my boarders. One side may have more designs than the other side because things fit differently. I always keep in mind I am not a perfect quilter.

QuiltnNan

thanks for the heads up... one more thing to check on when planning

joe'smom

Speaking of stripes, have you used a stripe for a quilt back? Do you think I should avoid this because of the difficulty of matching the pieces, or not worry about matching?

EasyPeezy

This happened to me just recently. Put a binding on a 12" block for a small mat.
The print showed up on 3 sides and on the 4th side it's completely missing. Oops.
Subtle and sneaky for sure.

zozee

Drives me bonkers!

nanna-up-north

The perfect quilt is so elusive.

costumegirl

This just happened to me with the recent block for "Stars in her Crown" - one fabric had stringy rows of dots. When I first cut my pieces I didn't pay much attention and when I put it together the misaligned "stripes" on the pieces kept jumping out at me - I was disappointed on how I first placed them and thought that it looked too chaotic so back to trying again. It took me quite a bit of time to wrap my head around how to get them to go in the same direction. The string lines were subtle but they were there

Sorry I don't know how to post a specific link for a post but if you scroll down to my post #92 on this page there is a picture of the final placement
Barbara Brackman's "Stars in Her Crown"

Anyone have suggestions on how to easily get patterns to align when paper piecing? I kept getting some of the pieces backwards so the "stripes" were facing the wrong direction.

Macybaby

I've found this seems to happen more with LOF than WOF - but it can happen with both. It's good to really look over your fabric before you start cutting for borders and longer pieces. I have a long background of sewing garments, and lots of plaids - I think that helps to make a person way more aware of pattern placement when working with any type of printed fabric.

One of my pet peeves is buying clothing where they didn't worry about how the fabric pattern lines up. My friend has a nice pair of wide leg pants and the fabric has a very prominent deep diagonal print. One one leg it lines up very nice, on the other the colors make it look like she's got something running from her crotch down the inside of the leg.