I have the top re-put together and I am much happier, should be cutting the first round of borders today (the white with red dot, all along the outer edge) and making my final decisions in that regard. The hubby said in the beginning that he "liked the mistake better, I'm not just saying this to make you feel better, I really I like it better this way". But part of the way I judge my projects is does it meet my mental image, while the other way did make a usable quilt, it was not the way I saw it.
That's part of the point of this project, is how we can do things that change a project and make it ours. There isn't a single right way. But (workmanship being equal) the small decisions we make can make the difference between an award winning quilt and a meh quilt. I usually make a pretty good project and learn how to make it great during the process, but then I rarely go back.
With these fabrics, I didn't use the Cherry Blossom fabric to the best impact. The triangles are too small for the scale of the fabric. All I have left is about a 1" uneven strip of it, but I pieced together some bits to show a better use of it (I mentioned earlier).
As for the pieces of paper -- I don't have a design wall, I have a small house and do my layout on my bed. Over the years I've been amazed at the number of times and ways I can sew blocks together incorrectly. When I layout my quilts each block gets a number corresponding to the design grid, I go Alpha Across (A, B, C) and Numbers Down (1, 2, 3). From habit and use I put the markers in the top left quadrant of the block. Sometimes I put in jokes, like when I have a K9 block, I must use dog fabric! My son's birthday is 6/10 so sometimes I'll put in a reference to that had one earlier this year (ten blocks long is rare for me for some reason).
In this case, I wanted to keep the way I had geese blocks so those numbers stayed on. Then I took off the numbers of the solid blocks and the setting triangles and using notes I wrote on my worksheet, figured out which were now going where and replaced them before I took the top apart. I also wanted to keep in mind that the cherries are directional, not a tossed pattern and kept those going from top to bottom. I did re-layout the whole top and stared at it for a long time. If there is an issue, it is staying in at this point!
Even still, even with the labels it amazes me the times I'll put together the blocks on the wrong edges...
I'm working on the Bonnie Hunter Frolic mystery right now, but I'll need something else to work on at the same time. I've pulled a collection of very different fabrics and I'm going to up the scale and do another version of this, the Cherry Goose version was an 8" center block. It was designed as a 12" block and a square quilt but I like rectangular quilts so the next one will be a 10" block, that's a 5x2.5" goose unit and I'll be using the square in the center shape like shown in the picture instead of two geese. I'm also planning on making this "as designed" with the triangles on the ends of the blocks instead of the alternating squares. The one fabric I'd probably be happier fussy cutting into squares but it is certainly easier to make this square than set on diagonal. Still, the diagonal set wasn't a super big deal so I don't know. I will start out by making the what I'm still calling the goose units. I need to go into my stash, I'm hoping I have roughly a one yard piece of solid gray in there and then the other fabrics are washed and ready to go!
The advantages of this shape and using a square is for medium/larger scale fabric. You still get the points of the triangles in the background, and by having the solid edges you can design that into the fabric instead of having a point one way and a solid the other. Also, it makes it so layout isn't so important, yes the blocks will still twist to one way or another but they won't be pointing so much like the stacked geese units.