North South East & West!

So the sewing room (aka other end of the kitchen!) got an update. My uncle Tony repainted the end wall for me in a pale peacock colour and put up a new light and a new Roman blind.  Taking away the curtains makes this space feel so much bigger now!

Excuse the bright light but its a daylight bulb that gives brilliant illumination over my workspace (aka dining table!)  What was I doing while all the diy was going on?  Figuring out how to quilt my project for North, South, East & West. 

Having seen some amazing show and tell at our IPS branch meeting 2 weeks ago I was inspired by a Compass Rose block our guest speaker, Mary Palmer showed.  She had quilted a circle around hers and I thought that would be perfect to frame my two blocks and give them some symmetry tying them to each other better.

This odd shaped block is a Wind Rose.  It shows the prevailing winds and strengths of Shannon the closest weather station to where I live and represents data gathered over 70 years.

I pulled out every thread colour I own and ended up using a lot of YLI variegated thread.

I even tried some 50wt Aurifil for free motion ruler work and struggled with stitch length consistency moving the quilt and ruler along the special foot edge - I need more practice with this bit!

Another thing I am not too happy with is one of my applique petals moved on me and my centre flower is not exactly perfect - oh well.  Nature is often imperfect too.

I am very pleased with the scrolling spirals in the background but it broke my heart.  What should have taken 20 minutes took nearly 4 hours as the top thread kept shredding.  It is a constant issue I have with my machine and I am getting it looked at in June.  I was so tormented I actually yelled at the machine at one point.  No dogs were spooked with the yelling - they were all outside sunning themselves in the warm weather for a change!

I added in a ship and a dragon and am calling the piece Here Be Dragons!  The idea being navigation in the past was perilous but with science and GPS and accurate maps we have it much better but don't be fooled - all the accuracy in the world (pointy compass rose) won't help when the weather turns against you (asymmetric wind rose)!  Well that's the idea anyway...

I looked at dragons and was inspired by this one and attempted to free motion something similar.  It looks better on my practice sandwich and I had to do a teeny bit of ripping which left a mark.  He is a tad too big, I think but well, the quilt is named after him, so I don't mind him being the centre of attention.

Cross hatching random lines in the outer edges and it's finally done, done, done!

Somehow the bottom doesn't look too square.  Crap!  Still, this was probably the hardest thing I have made so far - between designing the Roses, modifying the idea when all the navy fabric was gone, hours of paper piecing and days pondering quilting, it was a challenge and I learned a lot in the doing.  Imperfections aside it's the best I can do at this point in my skill set and I am happy with that!