Bento Box Frustrations

Who knew that this little block would prove to be such a BIG problem? This month in the Red & Aqua 2 Bee, Suzy asked us to make her a Modified Bento Box block that measures 16" when finished based off the tutorial found over at Film in the Fridge. I've made this block before, in fact I made it last month from the very same tutorial for Amy in the Sewn Together Bee. So I sat down one night and knocked it out rather quickly.

I always piece with my 1/4" foot so I don't have to worry about my seams. I had one little snafu with an errant rotary cutter, but she had said that we could add fabric from our own stash to the block so that little oops wasn't a big deal. Then I stepped back to admire my work and I have to admit that I really liked how the block turned out. And then I measured... Um, yeah. It measured out to 15" not 16". Even in the tutorial her's ended up at 15.5" but this was 1/2" off of even that! And I am a perfectionist. I love my iron. When I am working my iron is always plugged in and at the ready. I iron every seam. I was so confused and frustrated so I walked away. Sometimes that's the best thing you can do to come back at a project with a clear head.

When I next sat down with this block I took out the trusty seam ripper and decided to start from scratch. Some of my seams I know are well under 1/4" and the finished block didn't make me nearly as happy as the original did but it's closer now 15.5" instead of 15". Sigh. You can't win them all. The most frustrating thing is trying to figure out where I went wrong with these seams. Could it be that my 1/4" foot is slightly off? Perhaps. Sigh. Back to the drawing board.