All signs of advancement have been erroneous

Stupid quilt.

I am so sick of this Labyrinth quilt, but, dammit, I have to keep plowing on and try to finish it, since I'm so close. I got sidetracked by tendonitis in my left wrist over the weekend, and then by a cranky toddler with a sore throat and runny nose, but I was able to get back to it last night.

Now, I am absolutely certain that my rotary cutting skills have improved since I started quilting (almost a year ago!). I have learned how to fold the fabric and square up the ruler, and by all measures, I should be cutting very even, regular strips.

Apparently, this is not the case:






What the fuck? If you look at these strips before they are sewn together, they look perfectly fine. Honestly! Straight and even and, well, okay, perhaps not perfectly on the grain, so maybe a little stretchy, but holy crap!

This is the kind of quilt that I wish I could be doing alongside someone experienced, someone who could watch what I'm doing and be able to tell me the secret thing that will make all the difference. "Oh, honey, no. You can't stand like that when you're cutting strips. You need to point your toes toward each other and squat a little. Stick your butt out juuuuust a bit more... There! Now, sure it hurts, but look how perfectly these pieces sew together. Isn't that worth a little ass cramp?"

I've managed to work around these issues enough that the finished blocks do not actually look that bad from the front (the back, of course, looks like a crime scene) but I haven't had the nerve to try and measure them. It would make sense I suppose to try and square them up, but since there's no straight line any where on them to start from, I can't quite figure out how I would do that. I have 7 more blocks to finish, and then the borders. I have a feeling the finished quilt top will be shaped like a kite, and if so I will string it up and give it to the kids, and go back to piecing charm squares.

Of course, now that I think about it, maybe my problem is that I'm all off balance because I'M LOSING WEIGHT! Today, for the first time in I don't know how long, I was below 180: 179.4 to be exact. When I started this blog I was 197, and lost about 10 pounds in the first few months. This would fluctuate between 184 and 187 as I stopped really trying anymore, but I've gone on diet soda and a regimen of regular meals and portion control, and over the last 2 weeks I've dropped about 4 or 5 more. Now that warmer weather is here, I'm wearing last year's clothes and feeling them just a bit looser than they were, and that is a very nice feeling (except when you keep having to hike your pants up while you walk). So, my quilt may end up rather Lobachevskian, but I will always think of it as The Quilt That Was So Frustrating It Made Me Lose 5 Pounds.