The other day, I noticed a trend where me (and others) seemed to be having a particularly hard time with things the last few weeks. And it got me wondering…. is Mercury in Retrograde again? Whenever Mercury goes into Retrograde, I’ve had some truly spectacular problems (mostly involving cars, but not always.) And sure enough… that rat-bastard has been retro since October 31 and will squat there like a toad until November 20th.

He’s mostly caused minor, but frustration miscommunications with work (and of course, my iPhone going down), but had thankfully left my crafting alone. That is until the other day.

The Milky Way blocks have been fun to put together, especially as I have all the pieces cut and I can whip out a pair in about an hour.

The original quilt was made with non-directional fabrics. Sadly, mine are mostly directions, but when putting the kitty prints together, it didn’t really bother me if they went all willy-nilly.

But when I got to the diagonal stripe fabric…. well having it go different directions just drove me nuts. I took a little more care in layout, but I was able to get it all going the same way….

Except for…. well you can see it. Somehow, I don’t know how… I started piecing and completely missed that this one block was backwards! There was no leaving it like that. But there was one big problem. The pieces for these blocks are cut in such a way that it uses almost all of the fat quarter. I had scraps big enough for the green paw star points… but the stripes. Nope.

I was so frustrated, so I set it aside for a few days. Finally it came to me. The FQ pack came with 18 fabrics, but I’m only using 16 of them for the quilt. One of the leftovers was a stripe VERY similar to this one. The only difference? It had a grey stripe instead of a yellow… but how noticable would it be??

A lot less noticeable than a stripe going the wrong way.  And I’m betting, once the whole quilt is together, it’s not going to be noticeable at all.

I have one more block to make that has striped fabric…. but I think I’m going to wait until AFTER the 20th to do it.

In the meantime, here’s where all my other projects are at:

• Meow-lky Way – As you see above. Six blocks down, 10 to go!
• Pinkerville quilt – I haven’t touched this one in a bit… I’m going to try to finish the top by the end of the month
• Royal Stars – Buildings stars, two at a time
• Pins and Paws – Kitty by kitty, this one is growing
• Leader and Ender quilt – Stacking up those geese like there’s no tomorrow!