I Refuse!

I'm reading through the directions for my Mariner's Compass quilt. I'm going to add stripes of color to accent some of the shapes. In order to do this, I just cut off a strip from the finished pieces and replace what I cut off with a strip of the accent fabric. In theory, it makes a great deal of sense.

In practice, it wastes even more fabric. Did you catch the word 'finished' in the above paragraph? Why am I finishing a section, only to hack a chunk of it off? My plan is to make the section smaller in the first place, and then add my accent fabric. This will reduce the wasted fabric to a seam allowance, not several inches. 

My mother didn't raise a fool.