As a newbie, I'm still learning myself, but the best advice I can give is to take pictures of your work in progress. With my dd's quilt, a d9p, it wasn't until after dd and I looked at a picture of it that I had printed out that we saw that the layout wouldn't work. We saw right away which squares needed to be moved. Now, we are both happy with it.
I'll have to try starching my fabric before I cut. My next project is much smaller - a wall hanging - and I'm going to start cutting it tomorrow (I hope). I'll try starching and see what happens.