If my count is correct, I’ve sashed together 17 sets of four blocks so far. On each of those, I’ve made sure that the little square cornerstone pieces on the sashing look good “right side up” as well as when they’re pivoted 90 degrees to the left.

This is because the one really directional block in the quilt, the basket block in row J, is rotated 90 degrees to the left in the pattern. Apparently this is because they rotate the quilt at the museum so it isn’t always hanging the same direction, and the person who made the pattern did it while the quilt was rotated 90 degrees to the left.

So, I wanted my cornerstones to look good even if I opted to rotate my quilt so the basket was right side up after finishing the quilt.

It was on this bit of sashing that I realized I’d been turning the cornerstone blocks the wrong direction all this time. By rotating them to the left, I was seeing what the cornerstone would look like when the basket was upside down.

One of the blocks in this set of sashing has become directional in my version of the quilt, because I used that bird fabric which clearly has a right side up to it.

And now I’m being forced into a decision. Do I sash the birds right side up, and then they will be sideways when/if I rotate the quilt so the basket block is right side up?

My long-time readers got a glimpse of the rainbow quilt I was making for my kiddo a couple of years ago. One of the fabrics in this scrappy quilt features a blue-on-blue outline drawing of sailboats, and my child insisted on rotating some of the sailboat fabric so the boats were sideways.

This really bothered me, but I went with it anyways. And now that the rainbow quilt is done, it typically lays on the bed upside down (from purple at the head of the bed to red at the foot), so maybe the direction of the sailboats doesn’t really matter.

So, the blocks have been sashed together, and any way you lay down the finished Dear Jane quilt, something is going to be sideways … either the birds or the basket. And it’s good to be flexible, so I’m trying to go with it.

This set of sashing forced me to be flexible in other ways, pivoting my expectations about how to attach the sashing to the blocks.

The bird block was tricky to stitch through so many layers of fabric, so I ended up making four secret “pockets” on the back, just like I did on Triangle LR5.

The green block was sort of too big, but with those diamonds right at the corners, there wasn’t a lot I could do to compensate for it. I just had to fudge in the extra fabric.

The tan Star Trek block was the wrong size, but it was difficult to figure out which sides were too big or too small. Ironically, the simple tan block I did in the very early days was the most accurate and easiest to sash together.

I’m a little overwhelmed by how much pivoting was required to sew just four blocks together … but I’m adjusting.