Easier Construction

I have one last thought about the Quilt of Valor that I just finished.  When I received my quilt kit, I had directions for the quilt block and instructions to make 20 of them.  I started working making those blocks.  It was only after I started sewing the blocks and rows together that it occurred to me that there was a far simpler way to construct this quilt.  It would have been far quicker, and easier, if only I had seen a picture of the finished quilt, I might have done this entirely differently!

Here is the block, constructed according to the pattern I received:

When you sew block to block, you have to match those blue strips, the white squares and the red squares.  But what if the Block looked like this instead:

AND you added sashing strips and cornerstones: 

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You'd get the exact same look of the quilt, but with far less matching and cutting.  You could have one large center red (instead of 4 smaller squares that come together).  You could have 4 rectangles instead of 8 squares.  Add a long blue strip between the blocks (instead of 2 rectangles end to end), and a sashing strip with cornerstones between the rows.   I think that would have been much better.  It would pay to study the whole quilt pattern, not just a quilt block pattern!