I taught Geometry last year and in December, I taught my students how to hand sew. I provided them 5 blocks and they could pick 1, or make their own, and their job was to make a block before March. The goal was 9.5" but there was a wide range of sizes... The girl who made the pink block with the blue 8 pointed star, from the top left, 1 down, 1 in, she designed it herself and showed me it and said "but I can only get it to be 11 inches" and I told her "if you can make it, I'll make it work :)
Most of them did their blocks by hand (though they did have the option to machine sew), and then I put them together. I was telling someone else on a different thread, I waited until 2 nights before the year ended, and spent 2 days straight, in between giving finals, putting this together. The finished quilt is about 7 ft by 7 ft.