As I looked again, the magazine said the star should be 23-1/2" mine is 24-1/4" so that is probably the root of the problems. Not exactly sure what I did different. The magazine pattern shows that the star fits matched to 5 of the charm squares on the row above it - my star needed 5-1/2 of the charm squares. I ended up adding strips on all sides of the star block, that had everything line back up. I will have to see how I like it when I'm done. I might shoot them an email... we'll see