Quilting the first Compass - Jo's

I've realised one of the pitfalls of blogging, procrastination.   Writing about what you are going to do helps to put off what you need to do.

I decided to quilt Jo's compass first as the fabric is so patterned that I felt none of my stitches would be too visible and it would give me a chance to warm up.

I then found myself frantically flipping through Leah's Designs to try to find one that would fit, and couldn't make my mind up, what would emphasise the compass, what would work and eventually working myself into a real state.   I even found myself mentally referring to the quilt as "The Beast" - how mean is that?

So I poured myself a glass of wine (I refer to it as quilter's little helper) and thought about it.   I could sit and think about what I was going to do forever and the Beast, I mean the quilt, would still be there, larger then life, on my sewing table raising slightly questioning eyebrows and asking silently "Well?"

So I started with what I know and stippled the cardinal points that had writing on them.
 

Then took another sip of wine (quilter's little helper was definitely kicking in now) and decided to do some pebbling.   I want to use that in white sections of the quilt and I've never done it, so this would give me a chance to practise.   Hmm Leah rightly mentioned in her tutorial to be careful to travel over the lines quilted before otherwise it would look dirty - harder then she makes it look.


To save me rearranging the quilt, I pebbled 3 of the sections and decided I had to do the rumba's before moving on.   Big mistake No 1, I had created a great big puff of quilt between the stabilising and the pebbling which meant I had to quilt some of the top in folds.   Sigh.   Never mind for the next sections I'd do those first and then pebble.   That worked better.

The design for the rumba's were a development, I wanted to create a separation between the different colours/points and tried a vague pattern that flowed in one direction on one fabric and then in a different direction for another.   As I moved along I turned this into a wave pattern which worked better.
 


So not perfect and not particularly interesting to look at but the first compass is quilted and the result?  Well inspirational flood gates opened as I progressed and I found a design I'm wanting to try in the next compass which may work well.   I feel engaged and eager to continue quilting.   It's now fun rather then a task to be dreaded.

So the moral of the story is quilting something is often better then quilting nothing and letting the task build up as a monster in your head.

Stabilising The Quilt

I simply used off white thread to blend in with the main fabric and free motioned around each of the Compasses and it took me no time at all.

One of the helpful things about doing this, apart from the stabilising was that it allowed me to get the feel of how easy/difficult it was going to be to move such a huge quilt through the sewing machine.  I got a feel for the heft and weight of the quilt and although I tried to keep the majority of the quilt to the left of the sewing machine and on the table, this is not going to work in the long run.   I think I need to put a chair by the back of the table to support some of the quilt.

What I love about the concept of free motion is that you can focus for a while on a particular area of a quilt without constantly moving the bulk of the quilt through the machine the whole time.   On one of my first large quilts, I used a walking foot and cross hatched the whole quilt, this meant rolling up the quilt for one long line, then adjusting the roll under the machine and going again.   Tedious and I felt I was spending more time adjusting then quilting.

So first step done and dusted, now to really move forward

Oh what I haven't said yet is that the batting is 100% wool which I love for the loft, warmth and ease of quilting, and the backing is flannel.

The Design.....Challenges

I always knew vaguely what I wanted to do with the quilting, use symbols from old maps along the lines of "Here be Dragons".

So in the negative space I know I want to add these images:

• Sea serpents
• Wind blowing
• Mermaid/Sirens
• Sun with a face on it
• Sea Horse
• Old sailing ships
• Maybe starfish and clam shells

But what to do with the compasses?

Anyway as a starting point I'm going to fix the compasses by quilting a line around the edges.

Quilting Areas
Traditional wisdom states I should start with the centre Compass and quilt out from there, but this is such as huge quilt, I know that this in itself will be a huge task and I need to work up from there.   So I'm going to at it as follows:

1. Put a quilting line around the edge of each compass to stabilise the quilt a bit
2. Quilt each of the smaller compasses using filler designs from The Free Motion Quilting Project 365 days - I'm not going to over think this bit otherwise I'll never start, just pick a nice pattern for each area of the compass and start.
3. Having limbered up the fingers, I'll then start on the centre large Compass and hopefully by then will have understood what helps to emphasis the points and circles and what doesn't.   Will try to plan this bit only when I get to it
4. Get my map images as listed above and start quilting those.   I promised that I would let them sit randomly but I don't think I will be able to due to Step 5.
5. Use a number of Leah's sea inspired patterns as filler between the images, as there are about 6 I want to use, I will have to plan this bit but as Scarlett O'Hara would say kinda "I'll worry about that tomorrow"

What I do know is that if I sit on the designing anymore, it will be another year before I take the quilt out again and probably sit and put it all off all over again.   So I'm just going to start and start now!

OK might get a cup of coffee first and do some spring cleaning.

Help!

The Shipping Forecast - expanding the Mariner's Theme

My father, aged 14, ran away to sea at the beginning of World War II.   Lying about his age he spent the war serving as galley boy, cabin boy, cook's assistant in the Merchant Navy travelling from England to Australia, Canada and as many far flung places as a romantic boy's heart could wish.

Growing up in Ireland in the 60s and 70s when radio was much more a part of family and day to day life then television, the Shipping Forecast from BBC was a background noise, soothing and lulling despite the warnings of gale force winds and even today if I lie in my bed listening to the torrential rain of a Singapore monsoon, I feel protected and safe knowing that things indeed might be much worse off Viking.

Around the time of the block round robin, I listened to an audio book of Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly about the history of the Shipping Forecast and his travels around the coastal regions.   I listened to it 3 times in a row while walking the dog and doing my runs.

I wanted to incorporate this old childhood friend in my Compass quilt and decided to use embroidery extension of my sewing machine to do so.

With a little finageling - there are 31 regions and I had with 4 smaller Compasses room for 32 names - and using the old name of Finisterre as well as Fitzroy, I used the four smaller blocks for the region names.   I choose the block and regions based on a link between the maker and the regions.
 

This proved a bit of a stretch as I wanted to keep the names of the region in the order given by the Shipping Forecast.

I chose the selection with Viking for Ju as her father was from Finland so kinda sorta part of Scandinavia, although given Jo was born in South Shields, Tyne should have been hers.

Ju's Compass:  Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne and Dogger

Then I choose for C part of the group that included Thames as she lives in North London.

C's Compass:  Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland and Plymouth.

My compass choice was fairly easy, born and growing up in Ireland, I got the section that included Irish Sea.

My Compass:  Biscay, Trafalgar, FitzRoy, Finisterre, Sole, Lundy, Fastnet and Irish Sea

Jo's groupings were based on the fact she was living in Aberdeen so got the grouping with the Scottish coast, although this also meant she got a bit of Ireland as well.

Jo's Compass:  Shannon, Rockhall, Malin, Herbrides, Bailey, Fair Isle, Faeroes and Southeast Iceland.

For the large 47" centre Compass, I decided to use some of the most spectacular forecast warnings and quotes from poems.

Seamus Heaney's poem The Shipping Forecast

Dogger, Rockall, Malin, Irish Sea:
Green, swift upsurges, North Atlantic flux
Conjured by that strong gale-warming voice,
Collapse into a sibilant penumbra.
Midnight and closedown.  Sirens of the tundra,
Of eel-road, seal-road, keel-road, whale-road, raise
Their wind-compounded keen behind the baize
And drive the trawlers to the lee of Wicklow.
L'Etoile, Le Guillemot, La Belle Hélène
Nursed their bright names this morning in the bay
That toiled like mortar.  It was marvellous
And actual, I said out loud, 'A haven,'
The word deepening, clearing, like the sky
Elsewhere on Minches, Cromarty, The Faroes.

Carol Ann Duffy's poem Prayer

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

 

Stephen Fry, in his 1988 radio programme Saturday Night Fry, issued the following "Shipping Forecast" in the first episode of the programme:

    "And now, before the news and weather, here is the Shipping Forecast issued by the Meteorological Office at 1400 hours Greenwich Mean Time.

    Finisterre, Dogger, Rockall, Bailey: no.

    Wednesday, variable, imminent, super.

    South Utsire, North Utsire, Sheerness, Foulness, Eliot Ness:

    If you will, often, eminent, 447, 22 yards, touchdown, stupidly.

    Malin, Hebrides, Shetland, Jersey, Fair Isle, Turtle-Neck, Tank Top, Courtelle:

    Blowy, quite misty, sea sickness. Not many fish around, come home, veering suggestively.

    That was the Shipping Forecast for 1700 hours, Wednesday 18 August."

And some forecasts,

• Humber, Thames. Southeast veering southwest 4 or 5, occasionally 6 later. Thundery showers. Moderate or good, occasionally poor.
• Tyne, Dogger. Northeast 3 or 4. Occasional rain. Moderate or poor.
• Rockall, Malin, Hebrides. Southwest gale 8 to storm 10, veering west, severe gale 9 to violent storm 11. Rain, then squally showers. Poor, becoming moderate.
• Southeast Iceland. North 7 to severe gale 9. Heavy snow showers. Good, becoming poor in showers. Moderate icing.

And most spectacularly, on 10 January 1993, when a record North Atlantic low pressure of 914 mb was recorded:

• Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey. Southwest hurricane force 12 or more.  
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