Sewing for Charity: Hurricane Relief Quilts

Color My World put out an all call to share quilt blocks to be assembled into quilts for hurricane Sandy relief efforts.  Check out the post here if you want to help.

Now I'm the newbies of newbie quilters but I figured I could manage to make the simple block requested (a 9 patch--so you make 9 4.5 inch squares then sew them together to make a 12.5 inch block).

SO. . .I did.

Double bonus time, I used some fabrics I recently won.  Remember that "pin it to win it" thing from a few months back, that mystery fat quarter bundle.  Well this is it.  Yeah, I wasn't so thrilled with the set.  Not that it's not nice fabric but it's really not my bag (those florals--uh, yeah).  BUT. . .they look fabulous together and I'm very happy with the blocks that came about as a result.

This one is my favorite:

But now I'm worried they won't be good enough to use.  You can clearly see my corners don't match exactly even though I checked my machine to find exactly where the magic 1/4 inch spot was (I had to move my needle to the right then I could get the seam just right using one of the lines already on the throat plate).  But even though I took care with the blocks, they still might not be good enough.

And what if they're not the right finished size?  I did measure them but I thought the finished size was 12 inches but now I see it's supposed to be 12.5 inches (and I can't remember exactly what my sizing was--I know it was larger than 12 but was it 12.5 or more like 12.25?!).

Yeah, I'm being a worry wart but that's what I'm good at.

For what it's worth, if someone offered me a quilt made with these blocks (even with their not quite perfectly matched corners) I'd like it.  Especially that dots/lines square.  I wouldn't be ashamed to gift these squares to friends/family in a quilt so that makes them perfectly acceptable.  But I can't help feeling they should be PERFECT.  Where is this perfectionism coming from?  Especially given these are my first official quilt squares (I don't count my postage stamp quilt as "real" blocks since it's all scrappy and free for all).

Well, if the organizers don't care for them they can always tear them apart and keep the fabric for themselves.  It didn't cost me anything and wasn't really my bag anyway.  And I did get some scrap for my postage stamp quilt, so I'm only out the tiny bit of money it cost to mail them.

But I still want them to be GREAT.  Ok, for now I'll settle for "good enough".