Mariner's Compass Quilting Progress

Well the 'monster' and I have become well acquainted over the last couple of weeks! So far I've grid quilted it by stitching in the ditch between the (thankfully) large blocks, quilted the centre star, the four stars surrounding that one and the four sections between those blocks.

The stitching in the ditch part was hard work as due to the extra layers of fabric in the folded stars the quilt is quite heavy and it was quite a job to move back into the centre each time to start stitching back out to the edge again. I was glad to finish that job. At this point I wasn't sure how I was going to manage the rest of the quilting!

Once I got started on the compasses though it was a bit easier as I didn't need to move the whole quilt around as much.  I outlined (a bit wobbly in places) two of the three layers of the compass points and then pebbled around the outside. This is the back, the first shot shows the fabric and thread colour better but the quilting looks better in the second shot!

The white chevron pattern on this fabric is slightly rubbery which probably wasn't the smartest choice in hindsight as it probably doesn't slide as easily as other fabrics but after my fiasco with the navy fabric I was playing it safe and neutral this time! It does tend to show up the spots where I've 'marked time' on the spot more than I'm used to seeing but I'm hoping with washing that might look less obvious.

I decided to echo about an inch away from the edge of each compass and fill in the area this enclosed with some wavy lines to look like rippled wet sand on the beach.

As the centre compass has extra layers again I struggled a little with thread breaks and needles bending. I moved up a size and that helped with the needle issue. I worked out that the thread was more likely to break when I travelled over lines of stitching or when I was moving backwards so I tried to avoid that as much as possible.

Now that the centre of the quilt is done it should be much easier to do the compasses around the edges and I think I know what I want to do around the rest of the space too so watch this space!

The deadline of 15th of November is looming quickly so I'm trying to get this one moving but time is slipping away from me!

Thanks for visiting my blog today,