So, cutting strips and squares with arotary cutter is definitely the way to go. I'm sure this is old news for experienced quilters, but it was truly a revelation to me when I saw how straight and even my cuts are and how quickly I could cut out the 130 squares I need for this quilt. Hopefully, this will help my columns line up better than they did when I was hand-cutting everything.
This is the first row I assembled. My son is very interested in the whole process, and keeps asking me, "This is a special blanket for my big boy bed? For ME?" I'm loving that I told him it was a quilt, and he's calling it a "special blanket" and saying "for ME" like he can't believe it's for him. There is such a thing as too much interest, of course, as I discovered tonight when I couldn't figure out why my machine was working so slowly, then realized it was because someone had adjusted my speed settings...
