A little tip I do...I first pin each seam then I run a basting stitch...take out my pins ck and if not lines up easy to pull right out if lines up just run your reg stitch over the basting stitch...SEW SIMPLE...

I haven't tried pinning each intersection. I guess I assumed I should be able to do it like the gals on the tutorials.

definitely need to pin. You may need to lift your pressure foot half way thru each block to let the fabric lay back down. The pressure foot is probably pushing the top fabric harder than the feed dogs are pulling the bottom.

What do you mean by holding my top strip higher?

Nesting the seams and pinning help alot. Even if your seams are good, sometimes it doesn't match up because fabrics can stretch a little. So one might stretch a lot and another not much. Pinning really helps. I slow down as I get to the pin and take it out at the last minute. If necessary, I give a little tug while sewing to compensate for one being a little off. if the whole row is larger than another, put that row on the bottom when you sew.

I've been quilting for about a dozen years now. I quit sewing rows. I sew my squares or blocks into four patches and then sew those four patches into giant four patches until I have my top sewn into four quarters. Then I sew the top two quarters together and the bottom two together and I have only one full width seam.

I once took a precision machine piecing workshop from Sally Collins, and it is hands down the best class I have ever taken. If you can get a copy of her book, it is worth it's weight in gold. I have only adopted a few of her methods, and my piecing life is sooo much easier! She does machine pieced miniature quilts which are made of very complex miniature blocks, perfectly pieced. She knows her stuff!

That sounds like a great idea!

I was taught to pin at the intersection, very carefully, making sure that the pin goes easily through the intersection (of course the seams are nested first) then pin the opposite seams also and then sew very, very slowly and you can sew over the pins and that will usually do it for me. Cutting is huge tho' and if your aren't accurate with your cutting everything goes off!!! I also got a charm pack that wasn't cut correctly and really made a mess of my quilt!!

Yes! Sew into blocks instead of rows...works much better!