Funny thing happened to me last night trying to get this quilt started.
I can't cut strips of fabric and cut pieces from them to save my life so I have a set of Optima square rulers that I trace and then cut my pieces out by hand. My design uses my 4 1/2" square ruler.
Well, I had gotten all my fabric washed and my red fabric was all ironed. I was ready to start tracing about 80 squares onto it when I couldn't find my 4 1/2" square ruler. I must of looked for it for about an hour. Just tore my room apart.
The next size ruler I had was 6 1/2" and if I used that size it would change my design dramatically...I'd go from a total of 165 squares to about 63 squares. That's not even half of what the original design called for.
What I ended up doing was taking the 6 1/2" sqaure, marking it at the 4 1/2" marks, traced one corner of a square onto the fabric, flipped the ruler around, and drew the other corner in. I spent a good 2 hours drawing 24 squares, making sure everything lined up just right and that all the squares were 4 1/2".
I saw that it was getting late (or really early depending on what time you get up) so I went to clear off my mattress and get ready for bed. Guess what turned up? Yup, my 4 1/2" square ruler. I was so mad! So I spent 2 hours trying to make 4 1/2" squares with a 6 1/2" ruler when the 4 1/2" ruler was sitting like 2 feet away from me the whole time.