I am piecing together a Storm at Sea pattern and find it is quite tricky to get all the parts together and end up with a reasonable square :hunf:

Are there any hints for this? Does it matter how the grain is oriented in the individual pieces? I cut them rather randomly, but the grain is parallel to one of the edges.

How square do the squares need to be before it becomes an assembly problem? Is there a point when I should consider trimming the blocks to make them square?

Thanks

Before you do any trimming of the blocks, measure them and see what size they are. Are they the correct size?

Are your 1/4" seams consistant and accurate? Is your cutting accurate?

Yes, it will matter if your blocks are not square, and consistent in size. Each time one piece/block/place is off, it changes something all the way down the line... or in this case row :wink:

I would be extrememly careful with the bias edges, measure and square up carefully as you go...

I did Storm at Sea with paper piecing and had no trouble with getting it to size. You might give that a try. And with the paper left on until the very end, no problem with bias or stretching.

accuracy is a must, you have to cut very accurately, sew accurately, press accurately and i trim carefully as i go so that every step is kept square and neat. it sounds like you may be rushing the process, sometimes we have to slow down in order to speed up.

Why not do it as a paper piece? Quilter's Cache has it by piecing or paper piece. Personally, I'd rather do it PP.

paper piecing is the way to go for this one.

all the units will be the correct size and square - saves you a lot of time when putting them together for form the illusion.

If you do not do it paperpieced, and rather go with the cut pieces of fabric, then look carefully to your 1/4" seaming. You do not want to have to do too much trimming of the edges in the squaring up process, or you pieces won't be good rectangles or good squares and the result will not look "squared up."

Thank you for responding to my question. I created templates to rotary cut the pieces.The templates are made from 1/4" acrylic and are very accurate and square. I glued sandpaper to the back so the template doesn't slide all around. The pieces are cut well.

As for sewing 1/4" seams, that is a little tricky. Most of the seam is pretty good, probably within 1/32" of being 1/4". Occasionally I make an error. I noticed last night while sewing that the first sign of trouble comes when I press the seam. Apparently I'm stretching the corners more than the middle and it is distorting the shape.

Being new to this, I have not heard of paper piecing before yesterday, perhaps I should read into that a bit.

Definitely check out paper piecing for this particular block. Quilter's Cache has that pattern, she has a tutorial on paper piecing. There's also a lot of good tutorials on paper piecing, one that I can think of, is Carol Doak. On my printer, Quilter's Cache paper piece patterns, I find that I need to adjust the size to get the test square to come out to 1", so you might need to do that. Best of luck, and please don't forget to show us your block. We love pictures.

Make sure that you leave the paper on until you're ready to get the top ready for quilting, and don't forget to shorten your stitches.