I entered 18 items in the Geauga County Fair this year and this patchwork pillow was one of them. There are so many talented craftspeople with entries in this Fair each year, and when I enter, I hope that my work stands up to the competition. This year it did: my pillow received a First Place Blue Ribbon!
The pillow is a block design by Candy Goff named 'Brilliant Cut.' It was the first Mariner's Compass pattern I attempted. I've stayed away from Mariner's Compasses in the past because I was intimidated by all those points! But this article from 'American Quilter Magazine,' AQS, titled "Hand Piecing Strategy for Brilliant Cut" talks you through each step of the design and it gave me confidence that I could pull this off!
I had many blue batik scraps from my last project, so I used those for my first attempt, adding different whites and creams for contrast. I really loved the hand work & decided to make another block, but this time with completely different fabrics.
I had kept some my son's plaid flannel shirts from childhood, and I chose 2 of those for this project, plus some navy flannel scraps. I had precious little fabric (the shirts I picked were from the toddler years), so I had to be very precise on cutting and design. Each design piece came from a different area of the plaid which I mapped out & counted prior to cutting. I used the plaid/stripes to align the templates: some I placed on a stripe from point to point; and some I measured from a stripe. I really didn't know what I would end up with, but had several enjoyable evenings watching it take shape.
I decided to make the blocks into pillows when I realized I had no more fabric to make a quilt with either of them, and they looked so completely different from each other.
The pillow is a block design by Candy Goff named 'Brilliant Cut.' It was the first Mariner's Compass pattern I attempted. I've stayed away from Mariner's Compasses in the past because I was intimidated by all those points! But this article from 'American Quilter Magazine,' AQS, titled "Hand Piecing Strategy for Brilliant Cut" talks you through each step of the design and it gave me confidence that I could pull this off!
I had many blue batik scraps from my last project, so I used those for my first attempt, adding different whites and creams for contrast. I really loved the hand work & decided to make another block, but this time with completely different fabrics.
I had kept some my son's plaid flannel shirts from childhood, and I chose 2 of those for this project, plus some navy flannel scraps. I had precious little fabric (the shirts I picked were from the toddler years), so I had to be very precise on cutting and design. Each design piece came from a different area of the plaid which I mapped out & counted prior to cutting. I used the plaid/stripes to align the templates: some I placed on a stripe from point to point; and some I measured from a stripe. I really didn't know what I would end up with, but had several enjoyable evenings watching it take shape.
I decided to make the blocks into pillows when I realized I had no more fabric to make a quilt with either of them, and they looked so completely different from each other.
Its a great feeling to win First Place, but I'm not satisfied yet. I think there are more ways of using fabric with this design and I will be trying some soon. How about you, have you tried variations with a single design that gave such different results?