When I first started to work on this project I made my blocks with five “rounds” of fabric on each of the sides. Then I noticed that there is a certain level of variation in the finished size of the blocks. It was very small, but enough that I thought that it would be a good idea to square up the blocks.

I recently purchased a class from Craftsy called “Piece by Piece: Quilt-As-You-Go Techniques”. In that class the instructor talked about squaring up blocks and showed a ruler specifically designed to accomplish that. I ended up buying such a ruler on Amazon that measures 12.5 inches by 12.5 inches.

I decided to add one more round of fabric strips to each square using the Sweet Pea and the Morning Glory fabrics. I decided to make these last strips 2 inches wide instead of the 1.5 inches wide I had been using for the rest of the block.

Using wider strips for the final round will give me plenty of extra fabric to be sure that I will be able to square up my blocks nicely. Using these two colors consistently for the final round of each block will also unify the piece.

I will have a bit more waste than I would like due to the trimming of the wider strips, but I would rather waste a bit of fabric than struggle with the trimming.

I have forty blocks ready to trim. I anticipate needing 63 blocks for the quilt since I am planning on doing nine rows with seven blocks in each row.

I am planning to purchase a small cutting mat that I can use with my Ikea table at my standing sewing station so I can trim these blocks without having to bend so far over the dining room table. I have a birthday coupon for 20% off at Pennington Quilt Works this month, so I will probably pick up the new mat before the end of the month.