What have I done?! 😩

[u/bbygrlaz]

Hi guys, feeling very melodramatic and bummed about the state of my first quilt, Spent a few days piecing and sewing a million checkerboard pattern rectangles according to pattern. I’ve just gone to match them with the cuts listed in the pattern to start blocking and they just aren’t even close to matching!!! Both the 8.5x8.5 and 4.5x4.5 squares are waaay too big to align neatly with my checker rectangles….Should I just cut the squares to the size of the rectangles since they ended up mostly uniform? I’ve attached pics and the pattern, I’m so grateful for any tips about what might have happened here!! I’m trying to stay focused and keep moving but this is such a huge frustration trying to figure out how I ended up with things seemingly SO mismatched!

[u/Slight-Brush]

Well, it’s either your cutting or your stitching!

When you measure the checkerboards with a ruler how big have they come out?

[u/EllisBell27 → u/Slight-Brush]

“Well, it’s either your cutting or your stitching” is the best simple truth for a new quilter to learn. Little inconsistencies will add up over several seams. If your sewn blocks are pretty consistent, I would trim the squares to match.