Sailing, we are saiiiiliiing, ‘cross the waa-aaters, far away…

This evening’s hour of fun started because of Le Challenge‘s monthly dare to make something along a theme. This month is apparently ‘nautical’. The simple brief is to make anything. At all. In whatever format or craft. My sort of freestyle challenge!

Anyway, tonight I was playing with paper-piecing again, trying to escape from the increasingly overwhelming pile of marking I still have to do. Paper piecing is obviously an acquired skill, and I haven’t quite acquired it yet. For instance, I had to unpick a seam when it went horribly wrong and the boat’s entire mast disappeared. Now that would be seriously worrying if you were out on the water…

I suppose it could ultimately be incorporated into a quilt or a cushion, because last time I did some paper piecing it ended up as a tiny and perfectly useless coaster. It then got lost somewhere in the sitting room, no doubt lurking in some dark corner, under the sofa. The best part of this challenge was finding yet another fun thing to do with that little bit of Liberty from one of my old shirts. It has found its way into so many different projects over the past couple of years.

The block comes from someone called Kim Noblin who kindly seems to provide free patterns and tutorials. Oh well. Nothing like working something out as you go along. Pragmatic, I tell you. If a little deluded. So now I have a couple of days to make this into something proper to submit to this challenge. Challenging indeed!