Category: Quilting and Sewing

It’s 84 inches square and time to call it finished.  I really love my modern medallion quilt top.  After adding the arrows and orange border last week, I added a diamond border followed by a piano key border to finish it off.


One of the interesting things to me about this quilt top is how “pastel” it looks in color from a distance, when up close it is full of vivid, bright and many dark fabrics.  It reads so differently depending on how close you are.


Creating this quilt has been a fantastic experience in adjusting things as you go along, changing plans, trying ideas.  Lots of math, lots of sketching, lots of work but lots of fun too.  I have enjoyed every step of this creative experience.


The navy diamonds are bold like the arrows and help the arrows stand out.  They finish at less than 1.5 inches wide.  After the pink and orange I wanted to end with the greens used in the middle of the quilt.  There was one print from the Carnaby Street collection that I hadn’t used much but really like, so I fussy cut my favorite part of the motif for the corners.   The green strips are 5.5 inches long and there are 300 of them in the border.


I’m excited to piece a back for this quilt and decide how to quilt it.  Lots of work still to go but I’m thrilled to have this quilt top completed.

Thanks for visiting!
Jennifer

I’ve added two more borders to my medallion quilt .


I made twelve paper pieced arrows for border #8.  The measurements worked out perfectly this time.  I didn’t have to shorten the shafts of the arrows and had enough room for a 1 inch space between them.


I auditioned a ridiculous number of prints for the corner posts on this border before realizing that I needed a solid.  Everything else competed with the prints on the arrow, so a bright pink was chosen.  The ninth border is a braid or herringbone  pattern made up of dozens of little strips of orange fabrics.  It’s not what I originally planned color-wise but I like it.


Nothing is laying flat on these borders because I haven’t sat down to remove the paper from all of them.  (Any suggestions for quick but gentle removing of paper from paper pieced blocks is most welcome!)  Regardless, I’m happy with these borders and had fun making them.  I have decided to add two more borders to this quilt and then call it finished.  Right now it measures 72 inches square.


I’d like to finish this before Saturday.  Wish me luck!

Jennifer Linking to Freshly Pieced

I took a little break this week from my Anchor Quilt project to pull out a WIP.  After cutting and piecing a lot of one inch squares, the next border on my Lone Star Medallion quilt is complete.  It’s a busy border with the King’s Road print used as the background and a floral print (both from Pat Bravo’s Carnaby Street collection for Art Gallery Fabrics) for the pluses, but I like the way it looks.


These little plus signs measure 1.5 inches across, and the tiny squares finish at 1/2 inch.


One of the things I really like about this border is the way it reads as an almost solid from a distance, but has interest when you look more closely.


I also think it gives the eye somewhere to rest after the extra-busy look of the mosaic and flying geese borders that sit just inside it.  It kind of calms things down a bit.

Now I’m working on the next border, which involves twelve more of these:


Yep.  Twelve more paper pieced arrows are on their way to being complete.  I have two sections done and now get to do the scrappy piecing of the ends.


I really love the way these arrows look together.  In fact, several of my children have walked in the room and told me I should make an arrow quilt with them grouped like this.  It would be pretty, wouldn’t it?


And so it’s slowly coming along.  What do you think?

Jennifer Linking to Freshly Pieced