Sunday, April 29, 2012

Jigsaw Puzzle Quilting

My son requested a pirate quilt, and drew up a lovely sketch that included a large jolly roger, with a big pirate ship beneath it. I figured I could only do the ship with appliqué or paper piecing, and I thought paper piecing would probably look a lot nicer. I scoured the internets and was fortunate to find a free ship pattern from the Piece By Number website

It was a six inch block, which I needed to be a lot larger, so, fortunately, I was able to select the "poster" option on my printer which printed the single page PDF pattern onto sixteen pages, for a finished size of 24". I cut it out, and felt a little intimidated.

I then stayed up much too late on Friday night (yes, my life is super exciting, don't be jealous!) putting this together:

I still have to add the water at the bottom, which will be done the same way as the sky, which is apparently called strata technique - I used curved improv piecing the make the block, and then chopped it up for the paper pieced sections.

I am so pleased with how it has turned out so far, it looks exactly like I pictured it when he first drew his little sketch. The paper piecing, which I worried would be too hard, actually made getting all those precise shapes really easy, and it totally appealed to my geeky jigsaw puzzle loving side.

Now, I just have to finish the sea, and then figure out how to paper piece a jolly roger!

Thanks for visiting!

12 comments:

  1. That is a fantastic pirate ship. I love how you have done the sky.

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  2. Wow this is fantastic. I love the skull and croos bones fabric too. Perhaps you could applique one onto each flag as well? Just a thought. You must be chuffed to bits. Well done. PS my friday nights are like that too, staying up late sewing!

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  3. Wow, that pirate ship is amazing! Great fabric choices as well, they fit the theme but allow you to see the shape of the ship clearly. Your son will love this!

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  4. stopping by from fresh sewing day - this block is BEAUTIFUL!!! and i've never heard of that strata technique, it looks so cool!

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  5. Popping over from the Small Blog Meet--fabulous pirate ship, and fabrics in it! I think the background makes it though. I recently started sketching a house block to paper piece but haven't made it or posted about it yet. I love the design flexibility of paper piecing--so many options as to what you can make!

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  6. This is so cool and I LOVE that jolly roger fabric in the sky! I can't wait to see it finished: )

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  7. Fantastic! Love that pirate ship!!!

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  8. Wow that is really awesome! Great job!!

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  9. Popped over from Lily's Quilts small blog meet - loving this pirate ship and the water effect - Kate Spain's Central Park Reservoir is a big favourite of mine. Glad to have found you :)

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  10. Wow - this is fantastic. I have some bits of pirate fabric left from a quilt I finished yesterday. Not sure if I have a poster setting though!

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  11. This is amazing - I think my nephew would adore it!

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