Garden Maze Blocks

These blocks took two full days to do -- but I was interrupted by both kids and cats.  Caleb had an accident at work and got a bad cut over his eye; it took seven stitches to sew him back together again (no, I didn't do it myself).  

Teensy had to go back to the vet for a checkup on his injured eye. 

 

Thankfully, both kid and cat will recover and be all right. 

As I was taking Caleb to the Urgent Care office, I turned at the corner by veterinarian's office, and Caleb, still himself in the midst of trauma, howled, "But I don't WANT to go to the Pet Care Specialists!"

 

"But it's a whole lot cheaper!" I informed him -- though, having gotten the bill, I see that it is not a whole lot cheaper.

 

These 16 ½” Garden Maze blocks are comprised of 100 small HSTs and one large on-point square in the middle.  Now, since I cut all the pieces at the same time, with the same tools and supposedly the same measurements, and am sewing them all at once with the same machine and supposedly the same seam allowance, would you not suppose that they would all turn out the same??!

But noooooooooo. The middle square does not lay nicely amongst its attending HSTs; the HSTs do not play properly with all their fellows, and the blocks are turning out in as many different sizes as four supposedly-exactly-alike blocks possibly could!

Fortunately, they will not be lying side by side in the quilt. However, they are different enough that I fear at least one will find itself befacing (new word; somebody should’ve made it up long ago) the top of a decorative pillow, and another block made in its place.

 

Furthermore, one of the triangle colors is cut from a too-light piece of pink-flowers-on-beige fabric, and blends much too closely with the beige background.  Contrast, contrast, contrast.  Will I ever learn?  (No, I'm not going to redo it.)

I was more successful in the flower gardens this morning, and have the heaps of chaff to prove it.  But... from a distance, the blocks don't look too bad, I guess.