Diamonds in Blue

You might remember that in my 'Jane's Addicted' quilt I'm making a large diamond out of diamonds and they are all going to be in medium blues. I had re-sorted my blues and narrowed down the choices for the diamonds, pre-cut a bunch of templates, and got back to sewing. Securely ensconced in my organized high, I was feeling great about finishing good ole' shutterbug. Look how many many (many) pieces it has. Didn't it turn out nicely...? well - 

a diamond in blue. great!

nope. it's concentric squares in blue.
totally forgot to reverse the background and blue on this one.

ugh! to try to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again... I got out the roadmap...
Hey, no one is forcing me to make this design process so challenging, but if
I'm going to do it like I envisioned, I guess it's time to quit winging it and get my house in order.

Now, I'll bet you were guessing I couldn't possibly put up another post featuring a spreadsheet. well... you guessed wrong!  I ramped up the spreadsheet, pulling in all block names from the alphabetical listing on the dear jane site and started filling in the wave/motif info. for each block, starting with diamonds. Now I'll be able to sort by anything and use this as a planning tool and not just a recording-as-i-go tool. No more wire hangers!

Tracking Spreadsheets...

Block # of Pieces Tally - I adapted this from someone else's spreadsheet.
It allows you to enter the number of pieces you used for each 4.5" block, triangle and corner kite
and then automatically tallies them, subtotals and totals them. Handy!

Jane's Addicted block tally spreadsheet. This one is a comprehensive tracking tool of each block and every possible detail I could think that might be worth tracking. The spreadsheet tracks blocks started in order by number, name, wave (trip around the world), name of wave, general color grouping, date started, date completed, time to complete, original position, Jane's Addicted position (where the block will be positioned in *my* quilt), foreground fabric #, line, designer and manufacturer, and background fabric #, line, designer and manufacturer, number of pieces, assembly method, and type of block (4.5", triangle, or corner kite).  Next up I will be adding a column for Jane's Addicted block name as I couldn't help but start giving all the blocks my own name. heheh.