Don't Wait Too Long

I began making Four-into-Nine Patch squares back in March.  I have no idea how I got sidetracked (maybe a fabric sale and some adorable kiddie fabric?!!), but I only made this many squares then they got set aside:

That was a big mistake because then I didn’t remember what sizes I had cut the original pieces.  And we all know that math is not my strong suit.  The fabrics I started with were similar to layer cakes (which are 10 inch squares), but these came from a packaged set of odd sized rectangles instead (approx 9 x 10).

See those strips at the top of the picture above?  – that’s what helped me remember what to do.  Fortunately I had saved them from the original cuttings because I expected to make a piano key type border from them.  They were about 1 inch wide, so I figured I had started with 9 inch squares. So I went ahead and cut and sewed the 4-patches.

Then I remembered that I had used a black-marked 3 inch wide ruler instead of my regular Omnigrid ruler, so that was easy enough to see that I had cut the middles at 1 ½ inches on either side of the center seam.

Voila!  More blocks are in the works and I’m back on track.

Thank Heavens!

PS  Check out the picture of the great barn block on the police station in Tillamook, Oregon at the top of my sidebar.  Apparently the whole town was getting on the barn block bandwagon and a quilter on a quilter’s message board took this picture (I’m sorry I can’t find the original message to give her credit for the photo).  But look closely and see that those “flowers” really are iced donuts!  What a hoot … perfect for a police station stereotype ...