What would you do?

In my last post, I shared my current WIP and said stay tuned for the 'end of the story' . . . well, I finished a panel today, put it on the wall and.... it is a full 3 inches shorter than the other two panels!

Notice the difference in length  at the bottom right?  :(

I have been sitting here staring at this for most of the afternoon trying to figure out how to make it work.  I have figured out that this problem was caused by different sized seams (the squares in the shorter panel are exactly 2" . . . Congratulations to me, I have finally conquered that elusive scant 1/4" seam.... What this has caused is a major difference in these panels.  The other two panels are just over 2" . . . Here's a perfect example of how being just a little bit off, will add up big over the seams of a project - and this one has 46 seams on the horizontal.

So as I see it, I have a couple of options:

Get the seam ripper out and take the panel apart.... this seems like a daunting task to say the least.  I can't even imagine keeping those blocks in the right order, and then they would be sewn together differently than the other two panels. . . . would that make a difference??

Take the two longer panels, rip the seam in the middle and sew the two pieces together and make a baby quilt.... part of what makes this an attractive option is that I am obviously going to have to play with seam allowances to find where the longer panel seams were sewn.... It might be easier to just sew 7 more panels with my new found ability to sew 1/4 inch seams ....

I have also been wondering about whether or not the original panels have stretched.  I actually had a conversation with my mom about that very thing last night before I sewed the third panel together.... so what if I sewed a 'boarder' around those two longer panels with a long wide zigzag and washed and dried the panels. . . is there any chance it would shrink enough to be able to match the shorter panel?? Is this a viable option? I would love to hear if you think this would work.

What would you do?  Do you have other options for me to consider?? 

Linking to a couple of linky parties to hopefully get more traffic and a few answers!  You can find the links in my left hand sidebar :)

Linky Tuesday with Connie over at Freemotion by the River and WIP Wednesday with Lee over at Freshly Pieced.