Compass Journal Quilt

The July theme on the Sketchbook Challenge site is: Water. This led me to a train of thought which went something like this: water, ocean, being on a VLCC (very large crude carrier) with John when we were first married (he was in the Merchant Navy), navigation, compass. There were the beginnings of a GPS system on board but most navigation was still done with a compass and on a chart (this was the early 80s). I became quite adept at figuring it all out. Needless to say this is now a skill which is no longer necessary except in emergencies.

I knew that I had a compass stencil and I also wanted to capture the movement of water in the background so I set to work with my gelli plate, acrylic paints in watery colours and that compass stencil in addition to wave shaped masks I cut myself. I made a variety of painted fabrics in this way.

I then cut circles out of one of the fabrics using my Brother Scan'nCut machine and layered it up with others so that different fabrics were visible through the cut circles. I had a vague idea of having heard a compass quotation at some time or other and thanks to Google it didn't take me long to track it down. It's from Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar and reads: "This day I breathed first: time is come round, And where I did begin, there shall I end; My life is run his compass". I added part of it to the piece by printing it on calico (muslin in US speak).  Surprisingly this is closely connected in substance to my blog post from yesterday despite the fact that I finished the journal quilt on the 9th June. Uncanny how such things happen.

To capture the movement of water I added lots of hand stitching in circular movements which I did very peacefully over the past sunny days while sitting outside. I left the inside of the circles alone which meant they sort of puffed up, so this journal quilt is quite three dimensional.

Beading was the last step as per usual.