Charm Pack "Squares"

I had purchased at Tuesday Morning some 5" charm pack "squares".  I was making a simple baby quilt, that sashed each block in a row on the right and left sides. See note below on Jenny Doan's method.   What I found with my "squares," which you can guess already as they are presented in quotes, is that they were not quite square.  In fact, they were out of square somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8 inch.  Uncool.

I realized this after I had sewn my blocks to sashing and then sewed all of the blocks in the row together.  I attached top and bottom sashing strips.  When adding additional row units, and matching the right/left seams of the next sewn row to the one above, I was horrified to find that I was pretty off more than a reasonable amount.This of course happened because I had changed the orientation of  the squares from the original packaging.  Otherwise, I would have not noticed, as all would have been out of square but perfectly oriented.  But when turning one that is a wee bit longer than the heighth, it shows up.

Bill the Cat exemplifies my reaction.

 Did I unpick seam.  NO.  I simply 'eased' them  in.  It will still make a lovely baby quilt, and none will notice once quilted and laundered.  And, it was a valuable lesson--one I think that I'm on my second iteration of learning.  I'd like not to have a third.

 I so miss Bloom County. 





(1) Jenny Doan of Missouri Quilt demonstrated (forget which vid but will update when I find it) an easy sashing technique in one of her many high quality videos. Rather than cut the sashing strips individually and sew to EACH block, sew the blocks to a continuous sashing strip of your desired width (length = WOF).  When doing so, it is important to not turn your piece so that the orientation of the bottom or top now becomes either right or left.  It's surprising how easy that is!  You can nestle your blocks together on the sash to have one cut line in between, or you can leave more space, but you'll need to make two cut lines for.   AFter you chain piece the blocks to your strip, simply cut the sashing strip flush to your block.  A huge timesaver.   As I've become a serial gluer, I glue my blocks to the strip and then sew away with no risk of shifting.