Compass Moon

We serve no wine (whine) before its time!

Years ago I was really impressed with the stunning Moonglow quilt.  I thought it was gorgeous but I really didn't want to do a kit.  Time passed and then the 10th Anniversary version came out and I thought "Kit or no kit I am going to make that quilt".  When the kit arrived I got all organized and started my paper piecing journey with Jinny Beyer's pattern and fabrics. 

I quickly realized that I had a goodly amount of fabric that I could do some editing with AND I really didn't want a large wall-hanging.  I started tinkering with the design on paper and in EQ7 and figured out that I could put a center compass star in the quilt as a medallion and size up the quilt for my bed. 

It took a couple of years working on the blocks every now and then to get the framing squares ready to go.  Then I drafted the center compass star.  I drew it out to scale so that I could paper piece the whole star. I worked on the colors and the fabrics to go in the compass.  I ended up buying enough additional fabric to make several stars and blocks.  Every time I thought I had what I wanted I would decide that another fabric would work better.  Naturally on the first compass I was a smidgen too large for the actual space.  The second star (mind you these are 42x42 inch compass stars) had colors in the wrong place.  Finally by the third version I had the star I wanted.  For almost a year I had the hand drawn pattern taped to the top of my quilting table so that I could re-trace the pattern if I needed to make it one more time.

In April of 2014 Steve and I were in Washington DC and stopped at Jinny Beyer's store where I found the perfect border fabric to complement the quilt versus the five or 6 borders she has on Moonglow.  When I looked at the fabric I realized that I could take one row of border fabric to frame the compass star and tie it in more with the other blocks.  A little tinker here and there and I finally got the compass pieced into the center. 

A couple of weeks ago I took the quilt to The Quilting Page for Page to work wonders on my newest personal quilt.  I will post a photo of the final quilt with the quilting in the next month or two.  For now here is the quilt with the center.  For me, the quilt is off the table and out the door.