lab fairy

If the corners of the snowball are really bugging you, next time you could make the HST's for the corners a little larger. Then the seams would match.

MadQuilter

I wonder if your little squares moved on the snowball block? Did you mark the diagonal sewing line? Did you sew right on the line? I often leave the background square intact on blocks that add a triangle in the corner. I only trim the other half of the triangle. That way, when I press the triangle open, I can see if my block is off. When the triangle is larger than the background square I trim, when it is smaller I use the background square for alignment. Your quilt is pretty.

valleyquiltermo

Looks perfect to me.

DawnFurlong

Ahhh...and this is where my concern comes in for future quilts. I know that in some way those vertical seams are important in this. I lined up each block so that the diagonal line on the ruler went through the corners of the block - but I did not line up on any seam. Had I not been attaching the 9-patches to Snowball blocks (that did not have seams to meet up) - I think I would have run into a problem with seams not lining up.

So if you take off more on one side than another - doesn't that make the block pattern look off? Disproportionate? I am very visual, so having trouble "seeing" this. I should probably get some scrap fabric and throw together a handful of 9 patch blocks - making my seams deliberately a little bit off on a few - then practice squaring them - paying attention to one of the vertical seams. Sometimes I have to see it done wrong before I get it - and I would prefer for that to happen on practice blocks, not a quilt!

Lab Fairy - yes, that's a thought - I could make the HST bigger if I wanted the end of the triangles to line up with a seam on the 9-patches. I was actually relieved to see that the particular points I was looking at weren't necessarily supposed to line up. So it makes sense that in order to make those points lines up - the size would need to increase.

MadQuilter - yes, I actually did mark all of my squares on the diagonal. I am sure not all was perfect though. Especially with the sewing, though I did get better faster after working through 124 of them! I learned what I was looking for as to where to start sewing on the corners on my machine - very valuable to get that, made sewing the later triangles easier than it seemed on the first batch.