Angelina, you could leave off the 4 outer triangles of the Snail's Trail block, making it finish at 8-1/2" (9" from raw edge to raw edge). Then you could make single sawtooth stars (instead of the star-within-a-star Rising Stars). Make these to finish at 8-1/2". That would make the squares CUT 2-5/8" and 4-3/4" and the triangles CUT as follows: 3" half-square triangle and 5-1/2" quarter-square triangle. If you use some other method to make flying geese, the finished sizes are 4-1/4" on the long side of the big triangle and 2-1/8" on the short side of the small triangle.
I sized the blocks so that the Snail's Trail blocks could be rotary cut with nice numbers and straight grain on the outside edge after adding the triangles to the block. If you reduce the patch sizes, you will get into sixteenths of inches or worse. Good luck with your quilt!
Judy Martin, author of The Creative Pattern Book.
P.S. I am sorry you do not like my style of instructions. I do not use shortcuts, myself, so I do not go into detail describing them. It is really very simple to just cut the patches in the sizes indicated and sew them together as shown in the diagrams.