Joe's mom - this is what I mean, with the string blocks having the neutral triangles sewn on, there is no seam line to match up with going across like there would be if the string blocks ended and a flying geese unit was attached. So the closest seam of the string block give the impression that something is wrong, at least to me.
And if that FG was separate, then you could piece so it and the HST units attached to the 9 patch instead of having to attach them to the star block unit. I also think it would look better if the HST set was grouped with the 9 patch instead of grouped with the star unit. Me feeling on this quilt, from a distance and in pictures it looks pretty good, but up close it just looks random.