[Verencat]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bac1.htm

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/b...are%20one.html

http://www.oed.com/bbcwords/square-new.html

None of them precludes your theory, though I think the standard phrase is "back to square one", and I'm not sure how that would apply to quilting.

Cheers,
Marc

Oh well! I had something like "starting from square one" in mind.
Thanks for the links, very instructive!