Goosey goosey update

Apparently I'm writing blog posts in my dreams but not in real life again, because I was sure I'd posted some of these pics with an update on my temperature quilt progress.

When last I'd made a non-imaginary post, I had most of my numbers together for running a legend across the bottom of the quilt, indicating which color stood for which temperature.

I finally got them all done and was quite pleased with how they were going to look.

But then I had A Better Idea.
With all those angles in the flying geese blocks, those squares ended up looking chunky and clumsy.  So I grabbed some background squares and did some quick flippy corners.

Oh, yeah.  Much better.

I sewed them together into a strip, then hung up some red background fabric along the bottom of the design wall, hung up the main body of the quilt, and centered the strip of numbers below, just to see how it would look.

Uh oh.

I really wanted the strip of numbers to be the same width as the columns of geese, and in my head it was going to work.  But here's a clear example of how estimates can differ from reality.

I spent a quality afternoon with my friend Jack the Ripper and started taking out seams so I could cheat out some of that width.  Slivering a quarter inch here and an eighth inch there can all add up.

Finally, ta-da!

There.  The bottom is done.  I still have to cut strips and sew the whole border together, but at least now it's going to fit.

Onward to the top border.  More numbers.  Yay.