Noob!

Today I made a rookie mistake while piecing the quilt I'm working on.

Quilt? What quilt?

Well, when I made the mistake of going to my father's house when we were in Georgia, I managed to grab a bag of yarn and the 17 butterfly quilt squares my mom and I made years ago. It was going to be twin sized, since she talked me out of attempting a queen size as my first try.

Two square shapes are sewn right sides together, down the diagonal of the smaller square shape, which is then folded over and sewn into the corner of the larger square shape. Two of those, put kitty-corner to one another, and two large squares without the small triangles create the butterfly quilt square.

The thick black line is the main color. The red line is the butterfly color, placed face-down ("right sides together") on the main color and lined up with the corner. Sew the thin purple diagonal across the butterfly color, then fold the upper triangle down into the bottom right corner. This exposes the "right" side of the butterfly color. Iron the seam flat. The thin purple square just inside the black square is the 1/4" seam to sew the other squares together, so the edges of the butterfly square (now triangle) won't be visible.

I decided to have a finished butterfly square of 8" x 8", so the four main color squares are cut at 4.5" x 4.5" (1/4" seam on all four sides) and the two butterfly color squares are cut at 3.5" x 3.5".

Well, this turned into a tutorial, but that's ok because it helps describe what a noob mistake I made. I'm putting tan sashing in between each butterfly square, like a grid that the squares are slotted into. This is partly to separate the squares in a neutral color so it's not so "busy", and partly to add size to the finished quilt. With only 17 butterfly squares available and no more of the same fabrics to make more squares, it will be a 4x4 pattern, with one square left over. I'll probably make a throw pillow out of that one.

Anyway, I've gotten the sashing onto the sides of the squares, making four strips of tan/square/tan/square/tan/square/tan/square/tan:

What I should have done next is to pin and sew a strip of tan square/rectangle/square etc, like so:

...with four 8.5" x 4.5" rectangles and five 4.5" x 4.5" squares. Then I would iron that strip flat and pin it right sides together onto the strip of butterfly squares and sew them together.

Instead, I pinned each loose tan square and rectangle directly onto the butterfly strip and sewed them down.

Folded down:

At this point I was smacked in the face with "How the heck are you supposed to sew the tan pieces together properly?" I can't fold the sides together, since their 1/4" seams are all overlapping and sewn down. Herp derp.

So I spent the wee hours of the morning (still having sleep hygiene issues) picking out that LONG seam and pinning the tan strips together properly. I'll sew them all together later, then iron them all flat, and then I can sew them onto the butterfly strips like I'm supposed to.