Wednesday, November 08, 2006

A Tale of Two Compasses

I had hoped to spend more time quilting this evening and even imagined that I'd have the beginnings of the hand-pieced Mariner's Compass block that I'm working on along with Becky and many of the hand-piecers on Quilting to share as my WIP this week. Sadly, while I did make some progress this evening--I went to a copy shot and had Becky's templates printed onto cardstock--it doesn't rate very high on the eye candy scale.

Becky's Templates

(click to enlarge ... and you can see the line drawing of this very interesting, traditional block)

As I was thinking about a color palette for this block, I remembered some other compass blocks I made many years ago for a challenge on Quilting. The challenge was to create a quilt from 12" blocks using no templates, at least one curve, and using a split complement color scheme.

I loved the improvisational compass blocks I made, though they have languished as a UFO because I never had an inspired setting idea. Now I feel I have to put these blocks into a quilt, if only to illustrate the range of my quilting interests ... this two interpretations of the mariners compass are so completely different.

Improv Compass Block Improv Compass Block
Improv Compass Block improv_Improv Compass Block

I am thinking of using the same color scheme in the hand-pieced compass. The color isn't good in these photos, so you probably can't tell that I was aiming at the split complement of yellow-orange, yellow-green and violet.

5 comments:

DebbyMc said...

Oh WOW! Sophie these are incredible, I love them! I think you definitely should do something with them...the traditional one from the HP forum juxtaposed against these would be very cool...Amazing colors...

Anonymous said...

I think they're great! I love the abstract look of them. The colors are smashing.

sophie said...

Thanks. One of my early ideas of what to do with them is to quilt them along the lines of a traditional MC, but I never came up with a setting idea I liked so they've been sitting, sitting, sitting.

froghair said...

hello. May I use your improv compass blocks as a guide? I am looking for ideas for a wedding quilt, and I thought the compass theme was fitting (finding one's way with soulmate as compass, etc), but the recipients are a bit too modern for a traditional mariners compass pattern, I think. This is much more their style. Though I would use a different color palette, please let me know if you would rather I not try to "recreate" your work. Thanks!

froghair said...

Thanks Sophie! I'll be sure to share my progress/finished product with you, if you'd like. Did you ever find something to do with the blocks in a larger context? If you care to share, this might make it easier: amslusser@gmail.com

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