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Many times a person takes great care in cutting out the pieces and sewing a block together, only to be dismayed when the block is finished because it does not seem to lie flay and it "ruffles" around the edges. The major cause of this is improper cutting of the pieces. The direction in which the templates are placed upon the fabric is very important. This varies depending upon the design and the arrangement of the shapes within the design. Wherever possible, plan to have the straight edges of the fabric fall along the outer edges of each section in the unit, block, or quilt. This eliminates possible distortion in the block. Sometimes the way you want a particular fabric to look in the block will determine where the grain line is, but wherever possible do not allow bias edges to fall on the outer edges of your block. When sharp points occur in a design, I usually like to place the straight grain up the middle of the point. The designs below are patterns which are available on this site. The arrows on the various pieces indicate where the straight or cross grain of the fabric should be placed. Note that sometimes the same shape will be cut differently within the same block, depending on where that shape is located.