I Stink at Math!

This quilt project has turned into the biggest headache ever, either because I just can't do math or because my cutting and measuring skills simply blow.  I'm donating this quilt, buying materials while paying enormous graduate school tuition for my daughter.  The fabric is relatively expensive ($10/yd at most suppliers), so I decided to reduce the size of the squares, reducing the total size of a quilt to that of a lap quilt vs. one for a bed.  I thought I did a good job of the math, and even ran it past my math whiz of a husband and all seemed well and good.

It took quite a while to map out all of the cuts of the dozen different fabrics.  I sketched out a plan, double checked the numbers, triple checked the measurements and newly re-sized pieces, then started cutting and assembling.  As I started to square up each assembled piece, I discovered to my horror that they just didn't add up.  The "squares" aren't all squares, and the amount some of them are off is just inexplicable.  Each strip is the right size, the seams are the right size, I used a walking foot and marked the foot plate so that I wouldn't forget and slip to a standard sewing seam allowance (having spent more years making garments than anything else).  I measured carefully, cut carefully with my quilting rules and fresh rotary cutter.  What in the world did I do wrong?!?  Arghhhh!  I've made other quilts that required so much more precision (the first one ever was one of those kaleidoscope whack-and-stacks and it turned out beautiful!), and this one is just a bunch of stupid rectangles.  Seriously, what an epic failure of a job.

This big pile of lemon squares has got to become lemonade.  If I cut the squares smaller, the finished quilt will have a more modern and asymmetrical look and I think it'll work really well.  This is what the quilt was supposed to look like before I messed with the pattern.  This is NOT what it will look like when I'm finished tweaking the "squares."  I may be too humiliated to post the finished project.  I'm glad the folks at the auction will never know what it was originally to look like.  What the heck, I've never been a fan of symmetry.  It might come out even more fun.  That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Note to self:  Just spend the money and make the full sized quilt until math skills improve!