Prism99

I agree with this. You need to have something with a lot of loft underneath. Once the fibers have relaxed, you may need to work a finger underneath to fluff up each piece. Once they look better, do not iron! Just dust with spray starch and let them dry naturally. Basically what you have done is pressed in lots of creases that you now need to remove.

Spritzing with starch (and allowing them to dry, or ironing dry if the plastic templates can take the heat) before removing the templates would have helped.

Honestly, a quilt top does not need to be pressed absolutely flat before quilting. At least, on my longarm, I can compensate for lots of problems with fullness and uneven piecing by using lots of quilting on the quilt. (I have done this for my sister.) The trick is to do a lot of quilting and use a *polyester* thread for the quilting. Doing close quilting with cotton thread will stiffen up the quilt; close quilting with polyester thread will not stiffen the quilt. My current favorite is Bottom Line thread for quilting, as it is fine enough so even an inexpert machine quilter such as I am can make the quilting look really good. It's nice to have a flat quilt top to work with, but not absolutely necessary.

Edit: You also want to use a batting with loft to finish the quilt top. A lofty batting will fill in those hexagons. My first choice would be Hobbs wool batting, which would work for either hand or machine quilting.

And I wouldn't fuss over the seams at this point. I would work just on the right side of the top. Jinny Beyer hand pieces and lets her seams fall any way they want. She says it does not make a difference once they are quilted. (I will say, though, that she never seems to use white fabric in her quilts, which may help.)