After 8 blocks, and having decided those with off-white in them should form a cross (either 4-pointed or in the 5 corners) I still couldn’t get a layout I was satisfied with – either all four blues were too close together, or the two with the dark burgundy background were next to each other, or the two with the tan background and burgundy chevrons were next to each other. I had thought the two-colour tan and burgundy one with the sort of windmill effect would be the centre block, but decided it looked too dull. The arrangement on the left was the best I could come up with. Then I decided to make the last block my centre one, to fit the arrangement on the right. I wanted it to have all four colours in (discounted the plain burgundy that appears in one block), and by luck the last design I wanted to make was one I thought could carry four colours. It ‘s called ‘Gentleman’s Fancy’, I don’t know why!

Having decided on the arrangement of the four colours within the block, it came together quite quickly.

Because the centre off-white square measured up okay, and the finished square was the size it’s meant to be, I honestly thought the centre tan square was straight but just looked wonky because the angle I’d cut through the pattern wasn’t straight so it was an optical illusion. Not so! Sadly not until I’d sewn blocks together did I actually take the ruler to it and see it isn’t lined up right. So the very centre square of the whole cushion is wonky – could that be some sort of metaphor?! I’m thinking of it as like a sewer’s version of a maker’s mark.

Anyway, I’ve now done all the sashing, much of which was difficult because I started by making the same mistake I did with the windmill-style block, thinking so long as the sash was the same length as the block I was sewing it to, it would all fit together. Again, not so! When I had two blocks each composed of, say, four pieces of the same width, and sewed them to either side of the sash, they didn’t line up with each other and had to be unpicked and redone, this time with pencil marks on the back of the sash to show where the seams ought to line up. I got there in the end but it took yonks and once again I had to take it on the commuter train of a morning and afternoon / evening, not the most convenient! Still, at least you get good light through the train window. (I’ve been struggling with light at home, specially with the pencil lines on dark blue, and once it gets to late afternoon / evening and the sun goes down). Oh, and I nearly forgot to say, I remade the first block, the one I’d tried with paper piecing, using the draw-around-the-stencil-onto-the-back-of-the-fabric method I’d used for the other blocks. It does look neater and the centre point’s a bit better, and it made it easier to sew it all together when I didn’t have a different type of seam to master.

Herewith the finished front (two pics with different light / focus):

Needless to say, I’m about a week behind schedule for taking it home on Thursday!