When you have your finished blocks and you are ready to assemble them in to rows. Do you make sure each square is the same exact size before you sew them together?

I always seem to have something wacky happen. After I assemble each bluck I always have a pioece or strip of the block that is longer then the rest. Should I just trim of that specific piece or should I square up all of the blocks?

I would square up to the size they should be according to the pattern you are following, if its a little on the small side you can do a bit of tweaking and ironing then check again on your mat to see if its square...thats what I do, and be careful before cutting off any apparently bigger sides as you may end up with an unsymetrical block :shock: Make sure you have enough seam allowance so as not to end up with no points on stars etc.

Check and double check is my motto BEFORE trimming :D

I am doing the Candy Bar Road Pattern. It doesn't say how big the finished blocks are supposed to be.

YES, YES, YES!!! This makes things go together perfectly. The only quilts I have had trouble coming out wonky were the ones that I didn't square the blocks. I learned that lesson and now sqare up all the blocks before they go into rows.

Yes square them. I learned the hard way.

When I learned to quilt, I was always taught to take a plastic template and square all my blocks before putting them together. We were not taught to be a specific as we should have been when sewing, but we did square them up. The templates are expensive at the shops, but we were more fortunate. Our "teacher" had a hubby who made us all templates out of plastic that were very precise in size, from very small to very large. They do not have the scale on them, but they are great for squaring!

Yes, square them up but make sure your seams match before you just start cutting. Sometimes the part that is off is in the middle of your pieced block so cutting some off the outer block will only make matters worse.

I agree with everyone else. You must square them up, as you sew them together. You will be so much happier with the end result.

Good Luck,
Cheryl

Nobody's going to like my answer, but I never square up my blocks. But I am a perfectionist - all my corners have to match and my points have to be sharp. So my advice is to learn to be very precise with your cutting (whether you use a ruler or a template) and VERY accurate with your 1/4 inch seam width and be careful not to stretch your fabric while you sew or your blocks can get skewed that way too. If something isn't perfect at the block stage, I tear it out right then and redo it so there are no surprises when I start putting the whole quilt together. Sure you sacrifice speed for accuracy but, in the end, you make it up by not having to spend a lot of time adjusting and tweaking your blocks to get them to fit.
If you've already sewn the blocks, you'll have to square them. But I agree with MaryQC, make sure there aren't some individual blocks that aren't quite right and fix them if you can. You'll be so much happier with the results.

this has been the issue with most of my block-of-the-months. if you have to trim too much, then when you stitch them together with the 1/4" seam, some of the angles get stitched into (if that makes sense).