Daily art -- sewing the embroidery together

I wrote earlier about how a couple of past daily art projects are languishing in bags, never having been put on display (and probably never going to be).  Here's one that got a bit farther.

In 2012 I did hand-stitching every day (you can see all the squares here).  I decided to sew them together seven squares across to resemble a calendar. I made four panels, three months each.  It's a good thing I got started on that task early in February, because sewing the squares together turned out to be nearly as time-consuming as making them in the first place, and it was nice to stay up to date.

One thing that was satisfying about 2012 was the way the calendar fell -- about as perfect as you can get if you want to assemble neat three-month panels.  To begin with, the year started on a Sunday, so panel 1 would have a full row of seven squares across the top.

here's panel 2 -- April, May and June



















Then, because it was Leap Year, both the the first and second quarters had 91 days, exactly thirteen weeks.  That meant both panel 1 and panel 2 were perfect rectangles, with the beginning Sunday at the top left corner and the final Saturday at the bottom right.  And panel 3 also started on Sunday with a full row across the top.

By the end of September, however, the pattern broke just a bit -- the third quarter had 92 days, lapping over into Sunday.  So panel 3 had one orphan square in the bottom row, and panel 4 had to start on Monday, with a gap on Sunday (I used a square of tulle to hold the place).  I was pleased that the irregularity didn't show up until the third and fourth panels, so viewers would be surprised.

I still haven't decided how to display the panels, if I ever have a chance to do so.  It might be nice to hang them out from the wall so the back side is visible too.  I like the back side of hand stitching because it proves that the work was done by a human, not a machine.  I like the knots and the occasional tangle.  I like to see which stitches take up a lot of thread on the back, and which ones barely any.

Should that opportunity ever arise, I might sew a tiny tube of tulle across the top of each panel, just wide enough to put a very thin dowel or rod through, and suspend it from the ceiling on fishing line.  Or if the venue insists on hanging it on the wall, I might just ask for it to be casually pinned up without a hanging rod.  But I'm getting way ahead of myself!  For now, I'll probably hang a panel or two in my studio every now and then if a design wall happens to be empty.