Straight Lines Should Be Straight
05-05-2012, 03:10 PM
#1
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Straight Lines Should Be Straight
Does anyone know what the comment that straight lines should be straight?? I like to enter quilts in fairs and other contest and have received the comment on different quilts. My most recent quilt came back with the comment in areas to improve "Long lines of lattice need to be straight". The lattice I am taking to mean the sashing of the blocks which are set on point. I cut the sashing on grain but they would sit in the quilt at a diagonal to the edge of quilt. Do they mean that I should cut the sashing on the bias in order to have the the grain of the fabric square to the edge of quilt? Anyones insight to this question would be helpful. A glossary of judges common critiques would be helpful.
05-05-2012, 03:35 PM
#2
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Knot Merrill, Southern Indiana
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A pic of the quilt might help, but offhand I'm thinking that the straight lines are off square. If it's a long line of sashing it should be perfectly straight from one edge to the other.
05-05-2012, 06:58 PM
#5
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A photo would really help.
There's no issue with on-point sashing, and it does not need to be cut on the bias.
My best guess is that your blocks are not perfectly lined up so that, when viewing the entire quilt, the sashing looks not straight. Did you use cornerstones for the sashing? This is one way to keep the blocks lined up.
If you did not use cornerstones, did you mark the wrong side of the long sashing pieces and pin before sewing them together? If not, your blocks are probably not aligned perfectly with each other. I have posted before about how to do this. If you need those instructions, I can post them again in this thread.
There's no issue with on-point sashing, and it does not need to be cut on the bias.
My best guess is that your blocks are not perfectly lined up so that, when viewing the entire quilt, the sashing looks not straight. Did you use cornerstones for the sashing? This is one way to keep the blocks lined up.
If you did not use cornerstones, did you mark the wrong side of the long sashing pieces and pin before sewing them together? If not, your blocks are probably not aligned perfectly with each other. I have posted before about how to do this. If you need those instructions, I can post them again in this thread.
05-05-2012, 07:20 PM
#6
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Location: Ontario, Canada
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With borders and long sashing, some judges look down the line to see if the fabric is running straight. You can get some distortion when the quilt is quilted if the long lines are not stabilized first. Did you hand or machine quilt it? I machine quilt any straight lines first before FMQ for that reason. If you crosshatched the background, you have to be careful to stretch the masking tape that you quilt along from one corner of the whole quilt to the adjacent corner. Using partial pieces you can get a bend in the crosshatch lines. I don't know if any of this applies to your quilt without seeing a picture. Some judges are very fussy about borders running straight with no waves in them also.
05-05-2012, 09:42 PM
#10
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Location: Allen Park, MI
Posts: 408
That's a beautiful quilt! Were they talking about the actual quilting? I can't tell how it's quilted in that picture. Lattice could mean gridwork- is there any grid quilting on it?
Honestly, I can't see anything wrong with it from that picture. Very pretty.
Honestly, I can't see anything wrong with it from that picture. Very pretty.
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