Compass Spin Quilt

I’ve waited such a long time to share this quilt with you!  My Compass Spin quilt was finished last September, but due to the vagaries of magazine publishing it is only just being published today!

It’s a simple version of a traditional compass block made from Denyse Schmidt’s Washington Depot collection by Free Spirit Fabrics.  Thankfully the recent ‘news of their demise’ was too premature and I am delighted to hear that Free Spirit have been bought by another fabric manufacturer and the signs are that they will continue just as before.  As they are the home of most of my favourite designers this is wonderful news for me and for all the designers and employees (all of whom are lovely to work with)!

Though initially planned as a quilt for Today’s Quilter it has found a home in the latest issue (59) of Love Patchwork and Quilting, which has had a new makeover this month.  Loving the new look! The issue also contains fabulous cushions by Karen Lewis (using her wonderful new collection) and the most amazing cactus pincushions by Jo Carter, amongst much more! Definitely worth checking out.

And my projects for LPQ are a bit like buses, you wait ages for one to come along and then two arrive! I’ll be sharing more about the other piece in a future post.

I like quilts with simple blocks that end up looking much more complicated when complete.  This compass design has the ability to look quite kaleidoscopic, and initially I had the blocks arranged very randomly, but my husband said it hurt his eyes to look at them so I tried ‘washing’ the colours from red through to green and the whole thing came alive and Jonathan gave me the thumbs up!

Jonathan usually helps me photograph my big quilts (as that is one of his many skills/professions).  I have two places to get flat shots, this big shed door (the old tractor housing), and our barn doors, which I have started using more recently as it’s nice to get a change of background.

I thought you might like to see this candid shot of me hanging up the quilt. As you can see it’s a bit of a reach for me (being quite vertically challenged)! There are strategically placed screws in the doors and I use safety pins inserted in the binding to hang the quilt from.

These days I tend to whip up a few scrappy improv panels from the scraps as soon as I have finished the quilt (rather than storing them for later). And then I turn them into a tendril pouch! This is the one I made from this quilt.

It’s quilted with a variegated turquoise 50wt Aurifil thread in one of my favourite overall mussel patterns (I never get fed up with this one!). The backing is a Dashwood Studio Twist fabric.  And it’s bound in that lovely cerise fabric from the Washington Depot collection – some of which we have just got back in stock alongside WD charm packs!

I have to say this is a real favourite of my recent quilts.  The quilts I make using Denyse Schmidt’s fabric tend to be a bit special and this one maybe my best yet.  I think it has just the right combination of modern and traditional for me.

Sometimes it’s difficult to think of names for quilts so I ended up just calling this ‘compass quilt’. The magazine have entitled the project ‘Print Spin’ so I’ve combined the two and called it Compass Spin.

I’m also hoping you can see that kaleidoscopic movement I spoke about. Let me know if you can!