Compass Quilt and New American Made Solids

Pardon me for piggybacking what should probably be 2 blog posts into just one.  I have tried every day this week to get a post done, but struggled with getting blogger to actually upload my photos.  Since it uploaded them today, I am "getting this done"!  I am too busy to hope I can come back tomorrow and do it a second time.

First off, here is a great 69" Mariner's Compass quilt.  It is a Neimeyer pattern done in very bold batiks.  The high contrast of the oranges and blue/greens works well to feature the shapes.

These type quilts always take me longer than I think they should.  There is a LOT of stop and restarts, as well as thread color changes.  Oh, and did I mention the 3-4 hours of SID.  Some quilters find it acceptable to neglect the SID, but not I.  Ditching shapes like these preserves the crispness of the points.  Not doing so is pure lazy.  And I just don't do lazy.  Some day I will realize the profit I have dwindled by not being lazy, but today, I am most concerned with the quality of the product I create.

I love the swirly feather outer border.  Though time-consuming to stitch, it is continuous (in 8 large sections), and pure lovely.  This is done with a YLI baby blue polished poly thread - just the right amount of sheen to show.  She has cotton batting, so the relief is somewhat limited compared to those quilts that use wool, but since this has a great deal of light background, the quilting still shows well.  Those cross-hatched sections were also time-consuming, but a contrast of texture is paramount to a good quilting design.  I just like them.

This is the center...as space gets smaller, the detail of the quilting is simplified.  There are lots of flames, some swirls around the orange rings, etc.  I think it turned out very nicely, and the new owner will be pleased.

Part 2...

Are you aware that Clothworks has a new line of solid fabric?  These fabrics come in 50 colors and are made right here in the US of A!  

 I have a sample set of each of the colors, and they are pretty.

Clothworks is kicking off the release of this line of fabric with a blog tour.  One lucky blogger from each state has been selected, and I am lucky Miss Maine!  Have a look here...  You can visit each of the 50 blogs to see what the other quilters are doing.  We have been asked to make a block from these fabrics of our state license plate - with much liberties of creativity included of course.

The blocks should feature aspects of life in your state that people know and love, or that you cherish.  These blocks will be presented on the 50 blogs over a 3 week period starting very soon.  Mine is mostly done.  Since I didn't think it would be acceptable to just submit a white block and call it "stranded in another snowstorm of 2014", I went for another Maine favorite.  Guesses??...! I will show it soon, but not right now.  I happen to love how my block turned out; the colors are wonderful (even if my subject is of the cooked variety!).