it's not too difficult

i am (finally) caught up on The Quilters Studio BOM blocks ... this month the required block was castles in spain and the alternate was friendship ... they are pieced on the diagonal and Sheri, our BOM leader, was having a terrible time with castles in spain when she demonstrated the assembly ... so terrible, in fact, that she made her sewing machine go bonkers when she rested her head against it one time too many ...... i do that to Sven - and i usually hurt myself because my forehead inevitably hits the up and down thingy when it's in the up position ...... anywho, after watching Sheri struggle with the block for an interminable amount of time (she normally whips right through the demonstration and then we get to shop) i was not looking forward to trying it myself ... she kept telling us it's not too difficult ... you won't have any trouble with this ... it's not too difficult ... and then her head would hit the machine again ... i wasn't convinced ... so i waited and waited and waited for Auntia to put hers together ... and i listened at the door to where the magic happens for any discouraging words ... but there were none ... as a matter of fact, she said it's not too difficult ... just lay out your pieces and sew them the way the book says ... then lay them out again and keep following the instructions ... of course, i didn't believe her and tried to re engineer the block ... which i could have done if i hadn't had a limited amount of fabric that was cut the way the book says to cut it ... so i laid out the pieces and i sewed them according to the book and then i laid them out again and did some ripping because i didn't have them laid out correctly the first time ... i put them back together and laid them out again ... and it was right ... and pretty much square ... then i did it three more times with the pink and orange colorway - and they looked okay, too ... so i cut the friendship pieces and put them together by piecing on the diagonal...

...and they look pretty good ... the best part about all of it is that i don't have to avoid blocks that are pieced on the diagonal anymore because it's not too difficult ... just like Sheri said