Online Market Quilt Showcase 8 – Rainbow Mariner’s Compass Quilt

The Yellow Daisy Festival Online Market begins on Tuesday, Sept 8th. In celebration of this, I’m making some posts about the quilts I have ready to go. Each day I’ll feature two or three quilts and tell about their process and what I like most about them. These and other quilts can be found in the Quest Quilts shop on this website or in my Etsy shop.

I’m going to be honest here; this quilt is my pride and joy. It’s a technique called paper piecing, and, as you can imagine, is quite time consuming. I’d wanted to make something like this for ages and had the paper templates printed over a year ago at least. They’d sat in a box in my sewing stuff, and I’d all but forgotten about them. When Covid hit, I had the time to focus on something that would take a while to do. I’d made a couple of these before, so I knew it would be a commitment.

I’m in love with the colors and really wanted to show a gradient with the rainbow shades. I’m proud that I was able to use all fabric that I already had on hand except for the white fabric. The border was an afterthought when I realized it needed something it help bring all the colors in line. The backing was fabric I’d bought on a whim, but I was in love with it. I used the rainbow on it to adjust the colors on the front. This has to be one of the prettiest ones I’ve made; it’s certainly one of the more technically difficult. My hope is that it finds a home where someone will hang it on a wall as a central focal point.

Mariner’s Compass Wall Quilt

 

When we moved into our new house, I noticed at once that the nice, big living area lent itself to a nice, big echo. And I thought to myself that, alas, I would simply HAVE to make a wall quilt for our new home.  Such a burden…right?

I did realize that if I was hanging it up in the main area that it would need to be something that I wouldn’t mind seeing everyday and that I was particularly proud of.  Well, that can only be one pattern of course – the mariner’s compass!

Like many of my quilts I make, I tried to make this one out of fabric I already had on hand.  Luckily for me, I had bought some blue and gold themed fabric at the same quilt store where I’d gone to look at mid-arm quilting machines.  I don’t often buy fabric without a project already in mind, but this was too pretty to pass up.  And it was the last of the bundles as far as I could see.  The only fabric I bought after that was the fabric for the borders.

I like to use the Mariner’s Compass Stars guide by Carol Doak.  Paper piecing can be difficult when you start out, but I’d already made a king-size quilt for my husband using this same pattern.  So I’d had practice aplenty.

I’ll admit that this pattern, a paper-pieced mariner’s compass, is just about the one pattern I refuse to do on commission.  If you aren’t familiar with it, then let me explain.  For paper piecing you actually sew the fabric onto paper, and then you tear the paper off after each wedge is done.  To make one block you need to make eight wedges!  So yes, it’s very time-consuming.  But boy the results are stunning!

By the way, the Quest Quilts image I use on a lot of things is another Doak star.

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I am eye-balling a possible ready-made quilt at some point using one of these star patterns, but I haven’t fully decided yet.  Stay tuned folks!

Related blogs and posts:

Mariner’s Compass Quilt

A Round Mariner’s Compass Baby Quilt

Paper Piecing 

 

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