Making a 16 patch block. Am I doing something wrong?
I make these a lot but I wonder about my results.
I just made a bunch of blocks. I started with 3" cut strips. I strip pieced them into groups of 4 then sub cut them at 3". I sewed them together to make a 16 patch.
After I pressed them I had to trim them. They trimmed down to 10" square which is my issue. They should theoretically be 10 1/2" finished size right? Because the outer squares do not have a 1/4" seam yet. Once I sew these finished blocks to the next component, the outer squares will end up a tiny bit smaller than the inner ones. Or am I figuring something wrong?
I've made many quilts with the 16 patch block. Once the quilt is assembled it's hard to see that the outer blocks are a tad smaller than the inner so I'm ok with it in practice. But I have a feeling this is not right.
I looked at some blogs and they say with 3" cut fabric, I should get a 10" square block which I do. But what about the size of that outer edge?
Am I doing something wrong?