Seam allowance question
 

I had to change my plan for my quilt. The main part of the quilt is made of 5 " charms. However , I put a big star and sashed it in the middle of the quilt. My plan was to just put white fabric to the right and left of the star. It didn't look good, so I decided to keep my 5" charm square and 5" white charm star pattern to the sides of the stars. To make the charm squares fit around the star, I am taking a 5/8" seam allowance. My question is should I trim the excess fabric from the big seam allowance? The rest of the quilt has 1/4" seam allowances. Thank you!

I don’t think it necessary unless you are using a light fabric adjacent to it and you can see the shadow of the seam allowance through the fabric. I would try to iron them to the other side or maybe trim them up. But for construction no harm done.

You might end up having too much bulk at the intersections. Do a couple of test seams and then decide.

Thank you all for your help!

Perhaps you could try pressing your seams open, you would not see darker fabrics through the lights, and it would help with bulk when joining with other seams.

You could also trim the seams down to 1/4" after you sew each 5/8" seam to keep the bulk down. You are just trimming away excess fabric.

I don't see any reason to trim those seam allowances down, unless your blocks are so small that the excess seam allowances would overlap.