A Dilemma?

Ok. Here’s the deal…I’m faced with a problem. That might not actually BE a problem. But I need some input.

I posted here last week about my non-traditional “guest book” that I’m working on. (I promise that a post showing off the fabrics that I’ve selected to make the rings is coming soon!) I went out and bought the material and started cutting the pieces that comprise the quilt right away, as there are about 100 million zillion of the little buggers…

Anyway. Back on track, Miss CC! As I’m cutting up my muslin for the signing squares, I realize something. There are only 20 of the big center circles in a wedding ring quilt. Wait a minute. Let me “say” that again…there are only 20 center pieces.

source

You see the big open area in the “middle” of each ring? That’s where I had envisioned having my guests “sign in” for our wedding. But if there are only twenty of them…

Do you see the problem here? There will (hopefully!) be more than 20 people/couples in attendance at our wedding. Hmm…my dilemma grows in size…

So what should I do? I can see two options:
1.) Add another row/column to the quilt
2.) Have people “sign in” somewhere else on the quilt

Option #1 is limiting to me. For one thing, adding too many more columns and/or rows just creates more work for me. With only 20 circles, there are 98 arcs to make to construct the rings that form the pattern. Gulp. 98 is already a lot of sewing and piece work to do…granted, this is a project that can definitely take the “back burner” as we get closer to the wedding and projects that will actually be USED at the wedding take precedence. But still. Adding more rows/columns just increases the likelihood of this project extending into the future as long as the eye can see. Not to mention the fact that I would have to add on an additional 20 rows/columns to make this a semi-feasible idea!

Option #2 might have more promise. I know that not everyone will want to have a large space to “sign in” as they might not want to offer words of love or advice to us on our day. A signature alone can be done on a smaller piece of muslin. Like maybe on these smaller pieces where the rings “overlap”?

Do you think that would work? If so, how do I regulate who signs which piece? Or do I even try to regulate it? Maybe I should just leave all the pieces out and let each person/couple decide which size they would like to utilize. An idea that I’ve been toying with is pre-deciding who gets the larger pieces of muslin to sign – like bridal party, family members and close friends. Everyone else could just sign in on a smaller piece. The pattern calls for 49 of these smaller muslin pieces.

Another choice for option #2 would be to have no one sign the larger pieces and everyone just sign their names on the smaller pieces. I could quilt a design of sorts on the larger open areas (as shown in the above pics) to fill in the space and just have the signatures on the smaller overlap pieces of the quilt.

What should I do? I love this idea TOO much to not figure out how to make this work…not to mention the fact that I JUST finished cutting all the pieces out!

Can you help me out? I’ve posted another voting poll to the side (like I did when I was messing with those damn eggplant tablecloths…sorry MOH!) where you can vote on what you think that I should do. Side note: if you choose Other as your vote, be sure to post a comment telling me exactly what your Other idea is!

Thanks in advance for your help!