I've been sewing down bindings on gift quilts so haven't had much to share this week. Bee, Myself and I is a forum for "selfish sewing," anything which is purely for pleasure and not for anyone else or to meet a deadline. Granny Maud's Girl came up with the idea originally. I tend to use these posts for the needlework I like to do. This time, however, I have an update on a quilt top that will have meaning only to me I suspect.
I made a diary quilt a couple of years ago and enjoyed the process so much that I wanted to do it again. Last time I chose a 2.5" x 8.5" strip for each day of the year.
This time I've been sewing up "families" of flying geese units for each week of the year. I began at the end of October so only have about eight more weeks to do. The math works out to a personal size quilt, 60" in one direction and at least 72" in the other. I've not entirely decided how I will orient the geese yet. The first time I laid them out on the design wall I placed them all in one direction, vertically.
Today I tried out a horizontal orientation.
The latest set of geese are in the upper right, and the first down on the bottom. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind right from the start to keep a physical diary describing what the geese are meant to represent. It would be very easy to get them out of order! I had to refer to it a couple of times today just to be sure I hadn't mixed them up.
That layout didn't really do anything for me so I had another go at columns rather than rows.
This time I started with the oldest set of geese in the upper left corner and worked my way down and then up. So the week at the bottom of the first column is followed by the next week's geese at the bottom of the second column. I like this layout much better. I suspect this is the way the blocks will be put together in the end.
Families of flying geese units have turned out to be great leaders and enders. I'm going to have to come up with another project in which to use them, and pretty soon too!
I do actually like the horizontal arrangement from the purely visual level: a mass seasonal migration of geese, quite suitable for the time of year, really! I do see that the bottom version is probably more workable as a diary, though.
ReplyDeleteAll the layouts look good to me - so whichever you choose I think you're on a winner.
ReplyDeleteHi Sue, these are both great projects for diary quilts. The flying geese are very dramatic and crisp looking. I do like the setting you’re using.
ReplyDelete