Compass Quilters


I'm so excited to be starting my first quilting bee. We've decided to call ourselves Compass Quilters since we are women from all around the country who met through the Plum and June blog hop. The countries we represent are Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Italy, and the USA. This month, Rebecca from One Wee Bird is our queen bee and boy is she throwing down the gauntlet for creative blocks! She's chosen this amazing hummingbird block:


I'm very excited to try it, even if I'm a tad bit nervous. It's a paper pieced pattern and I'm not very good at those yet. I've only attempted paper piecing twice before. Warning - not my best work here, folks!


The first was this circle of geese and was through Craftsy's 2013 BOM class. That went well enough since I could keep watching the video over and over while piecing it. I then bit off more than I could chew and tried the patchwork cat. I tried using small scraps which was my first problem. I didn't have a stash to speak of at the time so I was trying to conserve my precious fabric. Can't tell you how many times I made mistakes and my fabric was flipped the wrong way and too small. This sad little block didn't even come close to squaring up. I just wasn't ready for one this difficult, and it's made me avoid the technique until now.

But I'm up for the challenge and can't wait to get started! I've started rifling through my fabric stash and have found a few low volume fabrics that will work well.


I think I'll save the print fabric though, in case one of my Aussie bee members requests low volume fabrics. I've also pulled some bright colored fabrics for the kites, but I'm keeping those under wraps for now. Wish me luck!

Comments

  1. Good luck! I went to Maitland and bought a few low volume fabrics yesterday and am looking forward to trying the block today.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think you will do a great job on these blocks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. best of luck, good for you with the paper piecing, a technique I still have on the to try list, I love your geese and cat and would be more than happy if I managed something as good.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have just cut up the squiggly print like yours (but in a pink colour) to add to Rebecca's block, so it will look like a deliberate tie-in!
    I have only sewn one teeny bit, but I have loaded the fabrics into a bag to take to my sewing retreat tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Awesome! Sounds like fun. You should end up with some amazing blocks!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good Luck! This looks like a good starter to paper piecing. Those low volumes are great, love the maps :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking the time to comment! I love hearing from my readers. I typically respond directly to your email unless it's an answer that I think everyone would be interested in hearing. If you are a no-reply blogger (and I know that blogger does not play nice with other blogging platforms!), I will reply directly on my website. Thanks for stopping by!