I'm having the same trouble with pp project. It's tiny little pieces, so at least I'm not wasting lots of fabric. Cat therapy always helps me! All I have to do is sit down and open a book. She does not like to share my lap with a book!

sew, flip, iron then trim from the right side.trim underneath. never failed me yet.

Awww, your heart must have sank! I haven't done that on the cutting board but when I embellished a top with some embroidery I found my border somehow got sucked onto the back and I had to trim off about a 1/3"; guess my skinny border is just going to have to be a little slimmer :0(