Be careful what you wish for. (Or, at least, I should be careful what I wish for.) Before the third Tuesday in February, I was hoping for The Kansas City Star to publish a pieced block for that month's block of this year's quilt. Big mistake! It turned out to be a Mariner's Compass block.
My first attempt yielded absolutely abysmal results. The second attempt was better but still horribly embarrassing. I would like to think some of the accuracy in the pattern pieces was lost on the way to appearing in the newspaper. This would explain why my parts of the block fit together badly. That, however, to be honest, is probably just wishful thinking on my part.
I considered abandoning the entire project but didn't really want to give up after only two months. So, I used the Internet to find a paper-pieced pattern for a Mariner's Compass block. The one I found is a 12" x 12" finished block, so I'll have to add borders to my result to yield an 18" x 18" finished block. Admittedly this solution is not perfect, but it is far, far better for my sanity.
I was feeling really proud of myself as I pieced the first eighth section. As soon as I had finished, I realized that anything but solid looking fabric would not work for most of the points. Of course, the cause for this aha! moment was my using prints for my points. So, I started again.
The pattern I bought for the princely sum of 99 cents is for a stained glass Mariner's Compass block, but I'm just ignoring the parts that are supposed to look like the lead. I learned my lesson. This block needed much more simplicity if I had any hope of completing it.
By the way, I have not finished the block yet, but I have made a good start and think the fourth time may well be the charm.
Although I have only completed three of the eight sections so far, you can see that the results are promising. I have sewed two of the eight sections together.
While you can see the seam line down the middle of the light gold star point, I don't think it will be horribly noticeable; do you? Of course, the dark gold points will end up having seam lines, too.
The only other sewing project I was able to work on last week was the fifth month clues for my quilting guild's 2011-2012 mystery quilt. Nancy Solsberg has designed this quilt, and a lot of time and effort had to go into it, especially since Nancy is giving us instructions for three sizes of the quilt. This is what the pieced parts of my quilt look like so far:
The fabric I'm using comes from the Panier de Fleurs by French General line manufactured by Moda fabrics. I really like how wonderful this fabric feels. I am hoping that my end result will deserve using this fabric line. But, I guess I'll find out.
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