I work with a small group of 5 other quilters. We decided to make a quilt that was geometrical and needed very accurate piecing. We all went away to cut and sew our blocks. Despite our very best efforts none of them matched, we put this down to individual machines having slightly different settings, couldn't possibly be anything to do with our cutting and measuring! Reading all the e-mails here it's nice to know that this is an international problem with so many of us not quite getting the finished blocks the right size. But hey there are no 1/4" seam police here in England so we find a way round it and make it fit. If everything turned out perfect each time there would be nothing else to learn and where would be the fun in that. Carry on ladies (& gents) everyone is individual and so is every quilt, whatever the size.

Kathy -- did the quilt police come to your house. Don't worry about it. As Margo has said many times the floater strips will help anything, but 1/16th is awesome. Darn near perfect.

Sharon

Margo wrote:
I was thinking the same thing, holy cow - hope she doesn't look at mine too closely!

Thanks for your info Kathy! We'll strive to be more like you.

denise

Kathy, your 1/16"-1/8" difference makes it darn near perfect in my book! We are dealing with fabric here! It stretches and it can be eased if necessary. GOOD JOB!!

Hi all, even though I measured, cut, sewed and pressed as well as I could, my pinwheels were still a bit off, by 1/16 inch here or there. The centers matched, and before measuring, I thought they looked pretty good. After getting out the ruler and looking hard, I realized that I would need to mark where they were a little bit short...... so, after thinking for a minute, I found some return address labels on a sheet. They are about 1/2 inch by 1-1/2 inches. After measuring a block, I wrote a little note on a label and stuck it lightly on the block. I've sewed together the row of 10 blocks so far, using my new smaller seam allowance, and the border after pressing measures 40-1/2 inches plus about 1/8 inch.

The labels stick well enough to stay on through a little handling. I'll have them off in a day or so, not long enough for the adhesive to stay on the fabric of the blocks. I thought this was a pretty neat way to mark the blocks, plus it uses up some of those labels that aren't needed so much, now that I pay bills on line

Happy sewing, Kathy