So many mistakes of the past came back to haunt me in this batch of sashing. It was problematic from beginning to end.

It started with sashing Block H1. This one was made early in the project, and about three months before I learned about not having the edges of the block on the bias.

It was a wavy mess, and frustrating to get it attached to the sashing correctly. I ended up redrawing the stitching lines on that one multiple times.

And of course, it had points that went right up to the edge of the block, so there was only so much fudging I could do to the size of the block without chopping off those points.

To make matters worse, some of those lovely sashing logs that I had cut out with my QuiltCut2 turned out to be “not quite” five inches long.

There was no way I was going to recut eighty sashing logs out of my precious, limited, red fabric, so I needed to come up with another plan.

I will now share that plan, in case anyone else out there managed to cut the sashing logs about 1/8″ too short, and can benefit from my lessons learned.

Basically, I lined the log up in the middle of my 6″ ruler (with the ends of the log at, or at least near, the 1/2″ and 5 1/2″ marks), 3/4″ in from the edge, so I could draw the stitching line on one of the long sides.

For months, I have been making a little hash mark at the center of the log (3″ on the ruler comes out to the center of the log when it is lined up this way). This helps me line up the sashing log with the center of the block I’m attaching it to.

Now, with these stupid too-short logs, I’m also making hash marks on the sashing log next to the 3/4″ and 5 1/4″ marks on the ruler. These mark where the stitching line should be on the short ends of the log.

Then I rotate the log to mark the other long side. I line up those hash marks I made with the 3/4″, 3″, and 5 1/4″ marks on the ruler, and put the same hash marks on the other long side of the log, perfectly lined up with my first hash marks:

The last step is to mark the stitching lines on the short sides. I basically just line up the two hash marks I made at the end with the edge of the ruler, and then draw a line connecting the two:

The seam allowance at the end of these sashing logs ends up being about 3/16″ instead of 1/4″, but the stitching lines are now marked for a perfect 1/2″ by 4 1/2″ sash.

With that problem solved, I continued on with my sashing, but the problems didn’t stop there. One of the blocks in this batch was the now infamous alien block (Block I2), which continues to refuse to lie flat and fall in line with everything else.

The pattern pieces show the points of the nine-patch coming right up to the edge of the block, but it just was not happening on my version of it. I ended up with each of the points about 1/8″ away from the edge of the block.

And that will have to be fine, because I’m tired of being haunted by the ghost of quilt blocks past. I’m declaring this batch of sashing done. Hopefully, no exorcism will be needed.