Disappearing 9 Patch

I started playing with patchwork this week - inspired by Sew Mama Sew . (You will need to scroll down to see the disappearing 9-patch)

Beauty I thought - this will be an easy one, I can sew the colours in strips of three, cut them off, all the same size, and then stitch them together in a row

to make the original nine patch. All went well - exept the corners didn't match, I had to pull them out, each seam, and resew the 9-patch to make the corners match. Notice, I had made the appropriate arrangement of colours - dark centre which would be split, purple corners and cream centre patches.

Then you split the 9-patch into 4 patches Not bad I think. Should be easy, because all I have to do is turn the squares around so that I have two dark small squares diagonal in the centre, and the other two diagonal in the opposite outside corners.

Two problems - It looked easy, only the centre corners had to match didn't they. BUT - at first, I didn't get the sizes of the centre squares identical, and the long strips - well they weren't the same width. Also - look at those two dark purple large patches on one side, and the two floral ones on the other side.
So it gets pulled out again. In future, before I cut the 4 squares out, I mark the finished size of the final patches. At least I know they will be nice and regular. I sewed them up again - and ended up with the arrangement above with the unequal intensity of the purple squares


So it got pulled out again... and rearranged so the darket purple squares are diagonally opposite...
Of course, I had to complete three patches before I discovered the colour problem didn't I?

OK - This time I should get it right to complete the rest of the 9 patches to make a little blanket, or something...

And what is more, Sew Mama Sew already has a new patch for me to experiment with...