Ship's Wheel

Finally, finally, I have finished my paper-pieced block for the Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop.   It took a while to decide on the design (if you like, you can read a bit of the saga of indecision here) but eventually after trying out a few pics and pallettes I finally settled on a photo I took of the Royal Yacht Britannia:

 picked a pallette:

and drew up a block:

which was somewhat overambitious!  I modified the design a bit and made the middle section an octagon to make it easier to paper piece.   Here's the finished block:

It could be tesselated by adding triangles like this:

I wanted to play a bit with the nautical theme, and make it slightly ambiguous, which is reflected in the (maybe odd) choice of fabric.  It could be a compass or a flower.  I really enjoyed the challenge of selecting a pallette and block inspired by the photo - it took me right out of my comfort zone since my previous experience of EPP was limited to hexies and these are not my usual colours at all.

I've appliqued it onto a piece of linen, quilted it in the ditch and in the centre by machine, and then hand quilted round the edge using stranded embroidery thread.

Things I learned from this:  use a new sharp needle - I know it's not rocket science, but it really does make it much easier to sew, especially if like me you baste your fabric to the paper.  It also makes it a lot easier to slip through the fabric without catching the paper when you come to piecing it together.

I also realised that if you are hand-drawing your design rather than using a drawing tool, you may get some inaccuracies in measurement  - I did, it's a little wonky - but you can make sure that it still fits together properly by numbering the paper pieces and sewing them together in order.

Now it's just waiting to be turned into a table mat, or cushion.