SewingSew

If you look along the selvedge you will be able to see if the fabric was printed crooked on the grainline. If it is, I'm sorry to say that there is nothing you can do. Grainlines can usually be straightened if they are crooked, but if something is printed on the grainline crooked, you can't change it.

quiltjoey

You can try washing and blocking it to see if it would dry straight...

MadQuilter

I generally surround it with a border that fits the panel (same value, similar pattern, etc.). Then I trim the whole thing to be squared. By the time you add the other borders, you'll never notice.

tessagin

I bought a panel. It's crooked also. I'm thinking triangles to camo the crookedness. You could use a Dresden template like the Dresden coin quilt Jenny Doan has a video on. See what your different templates would do to camouflage the crookedness.

marcycn

Well, I washed it, dried it, ironed it while tugging and it looks like I'll be able to use it - won't be perfect but I'm not going to waste it. :-) Thanks everyone.

marcycn

This is the panel. It's not the one I have - it's off fabric.com. It looks just fine here. :-)

MadQuilter

The picture looks cropped. The outer border fabric should be easy to match if you want to follow my suggestion from earlier.

marcycn

That is a picture off Fabric.com, not what it actually looks like. The border is not all even - badly cut. And if I try to cut down the brown edge it isn't straight. Unless I'm not getting what you mean. :-(

sophiebernina

I don't know if this idea might work, I have never tried it, but if I were in your shoes I think I would give it a go.

Could you iron the panel onto a piece of lightweight interfacing so that it holds the shape you want and then it shouldn't matter if the fabric is off-grain.

ManiacQuilter2

I agree with Tartan. We can put a man on the moon but they can't seem to print square blocks or panels. I had to add a small border to square up these printed squares from Elizabeth's Studio.