More good lessons

Finally had a chance to work on my first quilt design project today, and it was definitely a good lesson. I took the cutting instructions straight from Quilt Design Wizard. I'm not sure if it was my sewing or what, but the border pieces are barely fitting. I'm ending up "easing" the border piece onto the main piece. I've had to unpick and redo 2 seams so far. Once I was as much as a half inch off on the length. How did that happen?!

It's weird because after the first unpicking, I went back and measured and everything seemed to be the right length. I guess the seams or the thread is tweaking the borders to shrink a bit. I think next time I will cut each one at least 1/8th longer. Better to have to trim the seam than to come up short. Part of the ease problem is that the edges get off-track and then I have to redo a section where I missed one of the edges: oops. I can only imagine how frustrated I'd be if I were following directions. Good to know if I turn this into a pattern.