Thread: Hidden Wells - making me crazy!

Thanks to all! I believe maybe the problem arose with the pressing even tho the strips appear to be well-pressed and of the same size. I did starch my fabric before i cut the strips and used a press to do it. but i did not press again until all 5 strips were sewn together. All the bands match precisely when sewn. it is just the center square that is consistently OFF by quite a bit. I inspect these strips and blocks before cutting the diagonals and they LOOK fine. I'm not hearing this is a common problem to others who have done this quilt so hopefully next one will go better. i do LOVE this pattern!

Here's a really in depth link referred by Moosequilts. I copied the info into a word document to study later.

http://www.reocities.com/quiltfrenzy...aterworld.html

OH Joan, I'm so relieved to hear that others DO have this problem!! That means it probably isn't the result of something I am doing wrong! I read and used your tute as well as red dawn's and relied on both equally. I intentionally cut my middle strip wider so that i wouldn't have a tiny dot in the center. I think its was 2.5" and after cutting the big squares into quarters...i noticed some of the triangles were just simply smaller than others. I used a rotary cutter and cut diagonally into each corner very precisely. so technically each piece should match up perfectly and be of the exact same size. Is there a good measurement to always use for the middle strip that forms the points? or maybe having a seam precisely in the middle would eliminate this problem? I want to do more of these and the way i'm solving the problem right now is to just toss the quarters that don't match so only solution i know is to buy extra fabric and expect some waste. The problem is i won't know if i will have enough "good" wedges til i've made all my blocks. I googled numerous pics of the HW quilt and noticed some def have alternating larger and smaller squares in middle. I'm even wondering how that could be possible if you're working w/ the same strip-set, they should all be identical!!! those quilts that i saw looked great, btw but do some people use varying strip sets to make these?

I wanted to report back to let everyone know how i solved the problem with the center triangles: I used a chalk wheel to mark the very center of the middle strip..next I chalked a line from each diagnal corner making sure all intersections crossed in the same spot on the middle line. Then I situated my ruler so that I cut right ON those lines. If you cut just next to the lines, your triangles will be off. Even with marking the lines, you may still be off a little bit. I know most people wouldn't mind being off some but I found doing this prevents you from being off by more than a skoche. I will definitely watch my pressing next time bc i think thats very important to the success with this one. In fact, cutting and pressing accurately is probably more important than keeping a perfect 1/4" seam. Technically I should've been able to slice from corner to corner but that was not the case. Maybe my experience will help someone else. I hope so!!