Pam, have you tried starching the fabric for the fussy cuts? I'm working on a panel piece right now, and the panel isn't printed with the grain line of the fabric (it happens) - that can make the pieces a bugger to work with because they can be off grain enough to stretch pretty easily. Stretched fussy cuts will definitely lead to trouble.
A quilty friend of mine told me to try Mary Ellen's Best Press (because those cans of spray starch or sizing like to spit at me!) and I just love the stuff. Any of those three will work, since the baby quilts will be washed before being given to the babies. I starch the pieces twice on both sides; that seems to help a lot. If it gets a bit loose after handling it, starch that puppy again! :lol:
The other thing I'd suggest is to resist the temptation to press with steam - if a piece is cut off grain, stream tends to increase the distortion not tame it. Just a bit of distortion in each piece sure adds up when you put them together.
You're not a lousy quilter, don't even think that. These are things that we usually learn through terrible experience or by word of mouth from someone else - who has had a terrible experience :wink: Off-grain printing is just something we run into, that's all.