The tips lost a round.
Not to a better method, and not to a better sewist. They lost to the same block, sewn by the same hands, with none of the tips applied at all. That is the part worth sitting with, and it happened on camera while a snowball quilt block was built twice over for a sampler quilt along, once with every trick in the list and once with nothing but fabric, thread and a straight line.
The technique on trial is the one you already know by three different names. Stitch and flip. Flip and sew. Snowballing. It frustrates people out of all proportion to how simple it looks, which is why the tips exist, and why somebody finally testing them is more useful than another tutorial repeating them.
The whole comparison is in Ginnie Lynn's video below, both blocks and both rounds measured on camera. It is block seven of her Chocolate Sampler Quilt Along, a ten block sampler released one block a month and given away free, which is a generous thing to do with a technique most people would rather sell you a shortcut for.
Cut square. Press properly. Check against a ruler that tells you the truth.
That last one is not a slogan. It is what turned an argument into an answer: somebody laid something honest across the block instead of deciding by eye.
Then make the block. Both of them, if you have the fabric. One with the tips and one without, and see which way your own machine votes.
Marbelia Fernandes
The Fabric Hut Co-Founder
P.S. A corner that comes up short is usually a corner that was not pressed fully open. Press it again before you decide the block has failed you.
Test, blocks and tutorial by Ginnie Lynn. Do watch it there.
