OK, to be honest, it's been waiting more than a few months. More like a couple of years, actually.  The problem was, I had to find just the right quilting design.

It couldn't be too complicated; this quilt has been in progress long enough, and I really want it finished soon. Even so, I'm not ready to settle for something boring for the sake of hand-quilting speed.

The Lost Ships block has two triangular areas of different sizes to quilt, and I wanted those designs to be related, but not identical (because that would be boring). The design also had to fit the Lost Ships theme (because I said so). 

Most importantly, the design had to be template-friendly. That is, it had to be adaptable to my stencil-free approach to quilt marking.

Using a stencil is a great way to mark a quilt. Stencils are available for lots of beautiful quilting designs from online vendors like quiltingstencils.com.  The problem is that I never seem to find what I want in exactly the right size. Sure, you can cut your own stencils.  I've done that.  Frankly, it's a job that always finds me clenching my teeth and muttering, "There's got to be a better way!"

Finally, I discovered a better way.  Unlike stencils, where the quilting lines are cut as narrow channels in the background matrix (tricky to plan and difficult to cut), my template method uses solid shapes (ultra-easy to cut).

Plus, because templates are a "trace-around" tool, they need to be somewhat rigid, but unlike stencils, they don't need to be thin.  That means you don't need that pricey mylar material for your templates.  Any card-stock will do.  A panel from an empty cereal box will do very well, as my grandmother taught me.  (My Scottish great-grandmother would approve.)

Let me demonstrate.

For the Lost Ships quilt, I decided on a pair of shell motifs, one quite simple, the other a bit elaborated. ​
​

​I'll cut this as 2 templates: the blue shell by itself, and all the scrolling parts together.  Again, it's very simple to mark the quilt by tracing around the templates. Lines where the yellow and orange sections intersect are easy to fill in.

Instead, the design can be rendered with 3 overlapping templates. The first is the overall outline of the design, and serves to mark the boundaries of the other two, which are rotated to cover the 4 sides and 4 corners, respectively. The overall outline template isn't strictly required, but it helps with visualizing the process. It's also handy for aligning the rotating shapes.

Not every quilting design will lend itself readily to the template method.  Spiraling lines are particularly template-resistant.  But once you learn to look for the solid shapes within a design, marking with templates is a breeze.
​

Sometimes, there's only one obvious setting for a quilt. (Just kidding!)

Actually, in all my years of quilting, I don't believe I've ever experienced "only one obvious" answer to any choice. Not which block, which fabric, which thread color, which quilting design, which batting, which backing ... The list goes on.  Choosing a quilt layout, or setting, is no different.

For my Lost Ships quilt, given the size and number of my blocks (10-inch blocks, 6 across by 7 down), and the size of the quilt I wanted to make (a large queen), I knew I would need sashing.  I also was pretty sure I wanted to keep all the blocks oriented in the same direction.

To keep the diagonal movement in the blocks consistent across the whole quilt, I decided on 2-inch sashing, the same width as the half-square triangle strips within the blocks.  Extra HSTs made corner blocks in the sashing and further emphasized the diagonal lines.

I had the perfect blue fabric for the sashing. Well, almost perfect. The only problem was that there wasn't quite enough of it. (Don't you hate when that happens?) The simple solution was to eliminate the border sashing. Naturally, I did not choose the simple solution. Instead, I found another blue fabric for the outermost rows of sashing strips.

Of course, my near-certainty about wanting sashing didn't keep me from firing up my quilt-design software (I use EQ5) to experiment with other options. In the process, I discovered some interesting secondary patterns that can be created with a sashing-free Lost Ships block (see below).

Many beautiful quilts can be made from blocks that are all the same.  I've made a few of those myself.  They can go pretty quickly, with all those identical blocks produced assembly-line fashion.  

The problem with that style of quilt is that pretty much all the creative part happens up front, with the choice of fabrics.  Once that's settled, all that's left is craftsmanship.  

Don't get me wrong; craftsmanship is a crucial --and very satisfying -- part of quilt-making.  It's just not necessarily the most fun.

While we all may have different ideas about what's least fun in quilting (for me it's either basting, marking, or removing basting stitches, depending on which I happen to be doing at the time!), I'm betting there's a considerable consensus about what's the most fun. Playing with fabric, of course!

My Lost Ships quilt is 6 blocks wide by 7 blocks long.  That's 42 opportunities to choose fabrics for a lovely little miniature quilt. Forty-two chances to make that brown floral sing, or at least drown out the flat notes in its voice.

So here is a sampling of the blocks. Some are monochromatic (all greens, or all blues), while others use contrasting colors. Most use a light to medium value for the central triangle, but a few have a dark tone there. Some use very sharp light/dark contrast, but a few are rather close-valued.  The only constant is that the half-square triangles that make the outer edge of each block are always the lightest value. This is what I'm counting on to keep the variety somewhat unified.

When the focus fabric for a quilt is dull, there's a grave danger that the whole quilt will be D-U-L-L. Now, despite my peculiar penchant for brown florals, I really don't go for dull quilts so much.  
​

​If you look closely, there's actually quite a bit of color in that brown floral.  It appears in small quantities and subtle shades, but it's there: yellow, blue, green, pink, red.  I raided my stash to find those colors.  

There were a good assortment of greens, some decent blues, but only two yellows. The reds and pinks included lots of the itsy ditsy florals that were my very first stash acquisitions. Overall they had the same effect as the focus fabric. This quilt was definitely still in the danger zone.

Color aside, what this fabric has going for it is:

• lots of value contrast; 
  
• a fairly big, bold pattern.  
  

And that's exactly what was needed in the quilt block.  The Lost Ships block was perfect.

Coming up:  Assembling the Fleet

After a long interval of obsessive knitting, I'm finally quilting (and blogging) again!

​At first, my return to quilting did not go well. With two appealing projects -- a large bed quilt to be finished and a baby quilt to be started -- I found myself in a paralysis of indecision. I just couldn't settle on quilting motifs for the big quilt, or fabrics for the little one. So frustrating! 

Eventually,  I realized that I'd come to think of these projects as "The Masterpiece" and "The Heirloom." Phew! How do you spell S-T-R-E-S-S ? The solution became obvious. I needed to find a low-pressure project, something I could just play around with ... at least until I could tone down the melodrama of my overblown expectations.  

So I headed to my mysteriously abundant hoard of ugly fabric. What's better for low-pressure messing around than ugly fabric? I mean, you can't really ruin it, can you?  I pulled out a big chunk of brown floral. (Yeah, I collect those.)

You know this fabric.  I blogged about it previously here. The time had come to reveal the latent beauty in this hideous ... er ... challenging print.  

Coming next:  Over the rainbow.