I’m glad I saved one last beginner block to recharge me for the last couple of remaining blocks. But is this really a beginner block?

It’s giving me flashbacks to the very first triangle block I worked on, where attempt number two (yes, there were multiple attempts at that triangle block before I declared victory) looked like a sail bending in the wind.

This block has the same skinny diagonal strips as the triangle block did, so there were some concerns that this block would meet the same fate.

But this time, I have a few more things working in my favor. For one thing, I’ve accumulated eight more years of hand-stitching experience since then.

Also, this block will be square, and the ends of each strip are a quite standard 45-degree angle, which should make it easier to ensure that I’m staying on track.

My first task was to trim the corners off each of the strips with my handy-dandy point trimmer, to make aligning the strips easier when I went to sew them together:

The problem with the  sail-like triangle block turned out to be a number of seams that were a smidge off on one end only, causing the whole block to be wider on one side than the other and giving the sail effect.

This time, I focused on keeping right on the stitching line while assembling those striped corners.

And then I verified my work by printing out a block outline and cutting out a “template” that included the four strips plus surrounding seam allowance, so I could make sure each of the pieced corners was the correct size:

By placing the template first on top of, and then beneath each corner, I could confirm that the pieced corner segment was the required size before moving on:

This template method is basically what I ended up doing on that first triangle block, only I’ve gained enough confidence in my piecing accuracy that I didn’t have to make a template for every single strip – just for the corner as a whole.

Once all four corners looked good, I attached them to the center diamond and measured again, to make sure the “inner” square (before the green borders were put on) was the right size.

Again, this is something that was tough to do with the triangle block, but it was super easy to measure the square without the half-inch borders and make sure my block was on course.

The block came out decently … a little bit too small overall, but not listing to the side like that sailboat triangle.

Let’s hope the rest of this project is such smooth sailing!