This picture shows two things: First, how I am signing my blocks... name, city and date in the upper background, machine and machine date in the lower.

The picture also shows that on this block, I was careless with the pocket and pinched the bottom centerline a bit. You can see this on the SW corner of the center of the bow tie.

Here is another pinched block... this one badly. Look carefully at the corner of the center piece that is pointing East....

You can avoid that unwanted stitching in the center block if you are very careful how you fold it to make the last seam (which works better if IT is made in two parts form the center out). Here's what I do.
Bring the first two seams toward each other in the middle. Stick the index finger of each hand in the middle square to pull the edges left and right. As the square folds into a double triangle, the bottom should form a V, but the top edges of the V should bend upward to meet the raw edges that you are going to stitch at a right angle. This perpendicular should be about a quarter inch long, just the width of your seam. That way you will sew across the edge and not into the part of the square that shows. Start where the two original seams meet and sew to one edge, fudging you triangle a little if necessary. Then sew from the middle to the other side.
Katrina, since the captain has said that I should take my grandma's word on the age of her machine, and you know the captain's word is law, I will participate in the pre-1900 TOBE. How many blocks? 20?
Annie Made It!

Here's a picture of the "pocket" I keep talking about. When you pull the two sides of the unit that you have at this point, the folded piece is in the middle. You have to open it up to get this pocket. The tendency is to pull the edges out too far. It's best to kind of stick the ends of your fingers down into the pocket and use them to keep from pulling the edges out to points.

Everyone doesn't pin, but I do. Here I have carefully used five pins. The one in the center seam pins the top seam fold over so that it feeds toward the foot. You want this seam fold on top where you can see and control it. With the seams butted together, the bottom seam will point back toward you and tend to feed naturally under the foot. I have also put a pin at each "corner" of the pocket, and one at each end of the unit.

You will note that there appears to be a "bend" in the unit. This seems to be natural and unavoidable due to the folded material in the middle, where the pocket is.

Again, showing how the bend in this seam becomes emphasized as the material is sewn...

Here are the steps in ironing the block for consistency. First, lay the block down with a dark square to your left and iron the bottom seam over to the dark side.

Slide the iron up, or north, and iron the middle seam over.

This next series will show how I trimmed my oversized block. (I made 4 3/4" squares, rather than 4 1/2", remember...) Here I have placed a 9 1/2" Omniqrid square ruler on the block, putting the 4 1/4" line on the up/down seam and on the cross block seam. You can see that there is about 1/8" extra material to be trimmed, but it isn't even. Sewing a folded block perfectly is hard. I find it much easier to accept this and trim.

I rotate the block around so that what was the NE corner is now the SE corner. The straight, or trimmed edges are now on the left and bottom. I lay the ruler's 8 1/2" line at the 8 1/2" lines on the ruler, which leaves the remaining two untrimmed edges outside the ruler. Trim them off...

This is probably the most basic bow tie arrangement, simple furrows/.

and gives it his approval by bringing his favorite toy (a sock filled with crinkly, rattly paper) over.

This is Medallions, and is the layout I am planning for my feed sack bow tie quilt. It looks a little plain here, but with a mix of blocks, i.e. scrappy, it livens right up.