Temperature Quilt Along - Design

Last week I talked about choosing colors for the Temperature Quilt. Today I'll share a few of my thoughts regarding design.

Moda Bella Solids Fabric Bundle - 24 brights (Available in the Etsy store)

I’ve been asked how much fabric you should buy. The answer is: It depends on your design, how large you want your quilt to be and how many different colors you’re using.
EQ8 suggests a total of 4-5 yards of fabric total for a 60” x 60” quilt. Around ½ yard of fabric per color should work if you have 12 colors but it’s a bit of a guessing game.

There’s also the question of “what to do with the extra space”, since there’s no way to fit 365 blocks into a square or rectangular quilt. One solution is to have rectangular blocks, like flying geese. You would have 12 columns (one for each month) and 31 rows (one for each day). For the months with fewer than 31 days, you would have a couple of blank blocks on the bottom. This quilt would “read” top to bottom and left to right.

Another option is to leave some blank blocks at the beginning and some at the end and use those for text. Maybe a color key? Dates? A saying?

You could also leave a blank block at the start of each month and embroider or applique the month’s name.

SO many possibilities!

Right now I think I’m just going to go left to right, top to bottom, and possibly add a color key at the end.

What is your plan?

Please feel free to ask questions in the comments below and I will answer all questions in the comments so everyone can see them.

If you haven't signed up yet, you can do so in this post.

Remember to follow along and post your progress on Instagram using the hashtag #tempquiltalong.

(I've added a link to each Temperature Quilt post in the right sidebar so you can jump directly to where you'd like to be.)

Oh, and the pic at the top is of Moda Bella Solids in the colors I'll be using. If you like them and want to save yourself the time it takes to choose fabrics, they're available in the Etsy store.