Sampler Top is DONE!

This top kicked my rear last night.  Under pressure because I had time reserved on the long-arm machine today, I had to get the borders on.  I did the measure each way in three different places, both directions thing (L helped with a tape measure, D was in charge of writing down the measurements).  then I cut my little borders.  I had 8" of the black dot fabric left, so cut it 2.5" wide - except one of them was only 2.25" wide so the other two had to be cut down.  I cut them to length, then realized I forgot to take off for the little yellow strip I was going to put at each end.  So I figured it out and cut it off.  Then I went to pin on the borders, and they were way too short.  I don't understand - they measure the same length as the sides.  I gave up and decided it was staying like this:

This morning, I decided it really needed to borders, and that I would piece them together to make them longer.  Except when I measured, they showed the right length.  But when I tried to pin them on, they were short - not a lot, but noticeable.  Finally, I pinned them on, eased some, and got the darn thing finished!  With about 1 minute to spare before getting the kids to piano lessons and then school, from where I was headed to use the long arm.  I was really afraid I was going to end up with one of those "you can quilt it out, right?" tops, but it worked out pretty well in the end.  And adding the border definitely makes it look more finished.

I did the machine quilting today, and will have to get pictures of it in the next couple days.  Still need to trim, bind, label, and put the hanging sleeve on in the next two weeks, but I'm greatly relieved that it is quilted!