Roberta, sorry to hear of your head injury. I hope you're mending.
I have the book and took a look at the pattern. It's gonna be one of those where your seams have to be pretty accurate in order for the strips to line up properly. If the seams aren't too out of whack, I'm sure you can "fudge" getting them to match up since the cut is on the diagonal (which could be part of the problem). Or, if you really don't want to fiddle with this pattern, maybe you can try Bonnie Hunter's pattern that Beth posted above (at #9). All the pieces are the same; the layout is different but you would still need to match up seams.