Temperature Quilt - Planning 2

Now that you've (hopefully) figured out your temperature ranges and number of fabrics, it's time to think about design.

Quilt Layout
The most popular options for your layout are linear or vertical.

1. linear - start with your first block at the top left just add the next one the the right of the previous one. If you decide on this option, you will have to think about the shape you want your quilt to be so you know when to start your next row (or you will just have one 365 block long strip, which would make an interesting runner).

I tried to have it be square-ish. I ended up with 19 columns and 20 rows - that's 380 total blocks so I'll have to get creative with the extras.

This is my design for 2020 using the Moda Grunge 24 color bundle. As you can see, I have extra blocks.  
Blocks start with January 1st as the first block, then going row by row like reading a book until December 31st.

And this was my design for 2019 using the Bella Solids 24 color bundle (although I ended up changing the position of the blank blocks a bit).

2. vertical - this works especially well with rectangular blocks like flying geese. If you choose this option, you will have 12 columns (one for each month) and 31 rows. Some columns will have fewer blocks but you can add blank ones to the bottom for the shorter months.
This is Tina's 2018 Temperature Quilt (@seasidestitches on Instagram). She changed the direction of the flying geese depending on whether the temperature was falling or rising.

3. 12 blocks - you could also make just one block a month, like Kelly (@itsjustsew on Instagram) did. Aren't these lovely?

There are, of course, many other options.  You are only limited by your imagination.

Block Type

I thought about giving you some examples of blocks to use but, honestly, the possibilities are endless.

I recommend either Googling "temperature quilt" or looking at the #temperaturequilt and #tempquiltalong tags on Instagram.

In the next post we'll talk about fabric selection and color choices.