The Importance of Reading Directions

On Sunday night last weekend, after all the kids had gone home and the Mother's Day cake crumbs were cleaned up, I went into my sewing studio to work on some more Sow-Along blocks. 

Randy had posted three blocks on her blog, the Barrister's Block, and I wanted to do at least two of them.  I like the Fruit Basket block, I'm really starting to like doing baskets!

I made the middle block, called Union Square, without too much difficulty.  I had made a batch of 1 inch finished HSTs a while back, and stashed them in a baggie.  It was enjoyable picking out some other greens to go with them to make the block look like Randy's.  I was using my Little Wooden Iron to make the seams go where they belonged, or at least go into a direction that made the block lay relatively flat before it was pressed.

I'm pleased with the way it turned out.  You can judge for yourself:

Then I got to work on the basket.  The block divides into four rows and four columns.  The basket center takes up the two center spaces in both the columns and the rows.  Sort of a block with a border kind of thing.  Dividing the 6 inch finished block by four units gets you to an inch and a half finished per unit. 

OK, so I'm so smart I can sew this block together without even thinking about it.  I proceeded to cut pieces, sew the rows, sew the columns, sew everything together.  Gosh this block is so cute!!  I'm sure you'll agree!

The only thing is, when I laid it next to the Union Squre block, it's so cute because it's smaller... When I did the cutting for the units in the 'outside' rows, I mentally added the required seam allowances to the pieces I needed, and came up with the idea that in order to finish at 1-1/2 inches,  they should be cut 1-3/4 inches, not 2 inches.  I must have thought I only needed seam allowance on one side!!  Duh...

So I guess I'll make it again, this time reading the directions...

Keep on sewing!