Mariners Compass Quilt ~ A UFO Plan

 Last December, I started sorting through all my UFOs and making plans to finish them. I managed to complete a few this year, but there is still plenty left, and I’ve even added a few more to the list. HAHA! Such is the life of a quilter. Last year’s UFO plan will carry on into 2026 and beyond until I’ve finished them all. Of course, I’ll still start new projects as well when I get bored with UFO's.  Right now, I’m in full 2026 UFO planning mode since I’m not quilting due to home updates. My most recent UFO pull is the Mariner’s Compass quilt. Originally, I planned to use the 12 quilt guild BOM blocks as a border around the Compass, but after much thought and input from many of you, that plan has changed and those blocks will be used to make a very traditional BOM quilt, 3 blocks across and 4 down, with sashing's and borders.

The Mariners Compass was paper pieced on parchment paper.  Did I draw it or did I print it on parchment paper?  Who knows.  I can see that I labeled the pieces by hand, but I can't tell if the lines are hand drawn.

I remember drafting the flying geese border because I blogged about it back in 2012, describing my method. You can find it here. I took the paper out of the outer flying geese years ago to make sewing the next round easier, thinking I might need to ease in some fabric.

  Mr. Podunk loves the compass and originally had other plans for it (you can read about his plan here), so adding a little more time and effort to the design of the quilt.  After a little internet Mariners Compass quilt searching I came up with this plan for adding borders.  It will finish at 68 x 68.  That should be plenty big for him to burrow under like a hibernating bear, snoring away in the recliner.

As usual, I couldn’t resist experimenting with different ideas. The girly side of me thought adding a small print fabric could be cute. Would that make it too feminine? Maybe I could find a blue anchor print instead...it would still be cute but not overly girly.

Then I was thinking a darker outer border might work better, but nothing is set in stone. Whatever I decide, I’ll need more fabric. There are a few scraps left from making the compass that can be used to make a few flying geese blocks, but not enough for the final border or the inner solid border. There’s still plenty of time to make changes, and I don’t plan to start this project for a few months...ideally in the first half of next year.

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The Purple Iris Quilt Top

One of the best perks of social media is stumbling across people you’d never meet otherwise. A few months back, a quilting newbie named Melissa found me online, and wouldn’t you know it...she lives just down the road, a whopping 4 or 5 miles away. In Podunk, that’s basically neighbors. It took us months to finally meet in person, but when we did, she showed up with an armload of things she no longer wanted. Among them was a hand-embroidered quilt top.

Everyone knows my well documented aversion to purple, but this quilt top has earned the right to be finished. Melissa told me she got it from her mother, who got it from a friend who had passed away. Sadly, Melissa’s mother has also passed, so the maker of this purple masterpiece remains a mystery. All I know is she lived in Indianapolis, I guess I could add that to the quilt label.

 

I plan to gift this quilt to my daughter. She and my granddaughters love the color purple, and my daughter also has a fondness for vintage and homemade items.

The quilt top is as crooked as a dog’s leg and needs a bit of fixing. The plan is to take it apart, square up the blocks, and add sashing. My fabric stash is short on purple fabrics, but I managed to find a couple that might work.

After finding the fabric I decided to draw up a quilt plan in EQ8.  I even uploaded a picture of the quilt block into the program.  That's an EQ feature I use about as often as my treadmill. HAHA!

As always, I like to play the what if game when designing a quilt and I played around with the colors. Hmmm....A deeper purple might just be the touch this quilt needs. Looks like a fabric shopping adventure is in my future...always dangerous for my wallet but delightful even if it's for purple fabric.  Any ideas you may have are welcomed. I’ll start working on this early next year and hope to have it finished in Spring or maybe early Summer.

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Blue Scrap Buster Quilt

In the comments of my last post, T. Holster asked, “Are you missing sewing or not much time to miss it?”  YES, I MISS IT! As the saying goes, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” I miss it so much that in my downtime I’m planning quilt projects for next year. I’d rather be sewing, but the sewing room, like the spare bedroom, is currently a dumping ground for everything during painting. So, the next best thing to sewing is making plans to sew.  

As I mentioned in the last post, I need to sort and organize some of the scrap bins.  Since my newly painted living room accent color will be blue, I'll need to make blue quilts.  I've drafted and done the quilty math for two quilts already but that's not enough.  The image below, found on Pinterest is perfect.  A quick and easy quilt that will use up a ton of scraps. Funny how it took an hour of scrolling through Google, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest to be inspired by the most basic quilt... HAHA! Thirty years of quilting experience, and I’m absolutely floored by this simple beauty.

With the new quilt plan ready, it was time to dive into the three blue scrap bins...light, medium, and dark. For this quilt, the focus is on using medium and dark blue fabrics. I yanked the light fabric bin because I have a bad habit of sneaking rogue colors into places they don’t belong.

 

Digging through scraps is always fun.  I love bright colorful fabrics, they’re so cute, but not for this quilt. It’s time for adult Lea Anne to take charge and tell the little girl to hush, because she can be a bit annoying sometimes.

I also came across a few fabrics (the rogue I mention earlier) that didn’t seem to belong in the blue bins, so I figured I might as well take care of them now. They were hastily tossed into other bins with the promise of one day being neatly folded and stored with their friends.

And then there was this print.  It has a magic trick, pair it with darker blues and, presto, it turns green! I was convinced my aging eyes were pulling a fast one on me, so I snapped a photo just to see if the camera would catch the chameleon act. It did! How strange!

After having about an hour of fun sorting through the fabric bins I have the initial fabric pull.  They will be stored separately from the scrap bins.  Initial because I can't decide if they all will be used in the quilt... 

OR...

Option B - use only solid blue fabrics.

Option C - use only navy blue print fabrics and no solid blues.

Of course, the background fabric is also up in the air.  

Option A - Do I go with solid white from yardage?

Option B - Scraps of solid whites in different shades of white.

Option C - Low volume white and cream prints.

Sigh... All the options will simmer in the brewing pot until I return to the sewing room and start stitching again.

  

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Sewing Room Update ~ No Sewing!

 The sewing room may be freshly painted, but it’s not quite ready for quilting marathons just yet. In the meantime, there’s been an Olympic level amount of fabric sorting, folding, and yes, some affectionate petting. Honestly, this could be my dream job! 

If it weren’t for the holiday season looming over me like a pallet of fabric about to drop on my head, I would have sorted every color from light to dark. For now, I’m in a mad dash to whip the house into shape before the new year hits, because apparently whatever you’re doing on January 1st becomes the year's theme. So, here’s hoping I’m stitching cozy quilts all year long, not stuck repainting walls and playing furniture Tetris.

These Brightroom stackable 6W x 12L x 4H acrylic bins are from Target are perfect for holding fat quarters, half yards and one yard cuts.  They’re sturdy, unlike some I’ve come across in other stores and brands. In the image below, some of the folded fabric appears thicker than others due to the varying sizes of the fabric cuts. One day, I might sort them by size and color, but for now, I’m racing against the calendar.   By the way here's a quick video by Clover and Violet on how to fold the fat quarters to fit these bins. 

You might spot a “new” fabric storage cabinet on the left, new to the sewing room, but definitely not new. This hutch has been with me for about 30 years in the kitchen. When the old, wobbly white cabinet started collapsing, I saw my chance...a buffet upgrade, more counter space, and a perfect excuse to showcase my prettiest fabric stash.  Hopefully someday soon I can replace the other old white cabinet with another hutch or glass front cabinet so I can see even more of my favorite fabrics.  By the way those larger clear bins are 12 x12 and also from Target.

As you all know the old large white cabinet held my not so loved older stash of fabrics.  Well, I did some purging of the sewing room and made room for them in my cutting table.  They are rarely used but they do come in handy from time to time when I work outside of color pallet of choice.

Oh but wait, that's not all the fabric! HAHA!  Let's not forget the scrap bins. Sorting through the scrap bins is something I plan to do someday, but for now, they’ve found a new home under the quilter.  They barely fit tucked up against my treadle machine.  I refuse to part with my treadle sewing machine, when the power goes out, I can still stitch away by the romantic glow of candlelight!

This is also where most of my UFO boxes are stored.  The scrap bins below them used to be stacked, so the wheels had been taken off of the ones stacked on top. I've lost the wheels!  Let's hope I can find some replacements because the different heights is making things a little wonky under here and driving me nuts.

As you can see, it’s still a bit chaotic in here. We’ve had a small setback in the major projects for two reasons, it's hunting season and Mr. Podunk has been helping his 96-year-old mom pack up and move. We live in Indiana.  She’s relocating from Pennsylvania to Ohio, near one of his sister’s homes.  I can install most of the ceiling tiles myself, and when he has the time and the energy, he can handle the electrical work for the ceiling fan and lights.  There's plenty to keep me busy until then.  

I still need to paint the living room and restore the spare bedroom to its former glory. Right now, it’s serving as the official dumping ground for anything and everything that doesn’t have a home while the rest of the house gets its makeover.

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