03 July 2013

Hand Piecing the Centre Compass

In my last post I showed how I prepare my pieces for hand piecing using freezer paper templates. Here I will demonstrate how I sew these together.

Leave the FP on your fabrics until you are ready to sew them, have all the pieces for your block pinned wrong side up on a piece of flannel or a covered board as I have. This keeps everything organised.
Pick the first two pieces to be joined and remove FP, place a pin at the seam intersections and stitch between the seam allowances using a running stitch. I load 5-6 stitches on my needle, pull through and then take a backstitch. It is important with hand piecing not to sew into the seam allowances.
Before you break the thread, check if you can add another piece to the second side of your shape.
Make 1/4 sections, lay the pieces joined back down in their correct position until you need them again
and then join these to form the compass outer ring - leave the last seam open, this will allow you to piece the centre circle more easily
I chose to fussy cut my centre rather than make 4 sections. Use the temple to mark match points within the seam allowance, so you can accurately add the centre circle
When you have finished piecing, your compass will look like this - don't panic :)
Very carefully press the seams from the back in a radiating manner, start at the outside edge and work in - you should be lifting and lowering the iron - Press don't Iron and NO steam!
The finished block
and the back

26 comments:

  1. i love your center peace for this quilt i am stil looking at my stach fore the writh colors.

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  2. beautiful work! thanks for the lesson!

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  3. Thank you for this. I think I am ready to take the plunge and hand piece my compass.
    I love your colour palette, very nice.
    Cheers

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  4. WOW--that is amazing! I am just so hesitant to try to do any kind of "pointy" shapes like mariner's compass--which I LOVE! Thanks Julierose

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  5. Love, love, love your compass. I I am on vacation collecting the last of my fabrics for this quilt and my colors are similar. Can't wait to see your progress.

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  6. Oh so beautiful! Wow!

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  7. Love how fussy cut the block. great colours.

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  8. what a beautiful colors......
    groet Ineke

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  9. we do ours almost the same way. I applique the center on instead and I normally press as I get sections done. It works out great doesn't it and one can bring the work to where ever you want it to be. Right now I keep going back and forth from a chair on the porch to help hubby when he needs it on an outside project - every 5 or 10 minutes here and there you make progress off and on.

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  10. Awesome, thank you this is a very clear tutorial. Love your colours to.

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  11. I love your fabrics, and especially the centre!

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  12. Hello Elaine,
    I am new to your blog and thoroughly enjoyed your tutorial on hand piecing the centre of Esther's compass. This quilt might be a bit to complicated for me, I'm relatively new to quilting but I just love the design and will keep the files for perhaps a later stage. I will be following your progress avidly. Thank you for the help.
    Kind regards
    Mandy Currie

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  13. Very pretty:-) Great job

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  14. Very nice tutorial and a lovely block

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  15. Beautiful block. I have joined the yahoo group and maybe I start sewing this quilt too. It is amazing, but so much work :)

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  16. Elaine, Your compass is beautiful! I love the soft, dreamy colors. Great tutorial!

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  17. I'm selecting my fabrics today. I still need to purchase my background... Thank you for the great tutorial. I'm going to give it a try. I'm sort of nervous.

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  18. Elaine, your compass is wonderful! Love the center you chose, and your colors are very romantic.

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  19. Really nice compass!!! Love your fabrics

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  20. Beautiful! Love the center rose.

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  21. Wonderful handsewing!

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  22. Wonderful handsewing!

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