It Is Robby Burns Night!

Astrid has made a quilt just for the occasion of celebrating our Scottish heritage.  We had a lovely dinner including haggis and shortbread cookies.  Astrid wants readers to be aware that haggis is gluten free.  The shortbread cookies were made using a gluten free recipe.  Anyway, back to the quilt!  

Here is Astrid, in her Scottish skirt, showing off her quilt, "Scotch Pines".  It is a little bigger than she expected it to turn out, but now it is certain to cover her from head to toe.  We all told her, it would look lovely in our living rooms.  She quilted it herself, using the stippling method.  Happy Birthday to Robert Burns, the Scottish bard that wrote "Flow Gently Sweet Afton", "Auld Lang Sine", and may others.  You take the high road, and I am going to do some more quilting (and have another shortbread cookie).  Someone put on the bag pipe music!

Jane's January Tutorial: Medallion Quilt

Greetings and happy New Year!  I am so excited to do my January tutorial.  Kirsten, Marsha, Astrid, and I agreed to do medallion quilts, as a bit of a challenge project for us.  We did Civil War Nine-patch quilts a couple years back.  In 2021, each of us is going to make a medallion quilt.  This tutorial is: "How to Make A Medallion Quilt"

PRELIMINARIES:  It is a good idea to have a design wall, when making a medallion quilt.  It is pretty much, grow as you go.  You can spread it out on a table, but it is easier to visualize, if you pin some flannel, or a flannel backed table cloth, up on your wall.  Kirsten and I have this wonderful design wall, that Kirsten made out of a huge sheet of foam core board, that she wrapped in flannel.  

A medallion quilt is one with a central focal-point block, with a border or multiple borders around it.  There are many way of making one of these quilts.  I will keep it pretty basic, to help you understand. I will be making two medallion quilts, so this tutorial is in two parts.

First you want to think about what fabrics you have on hand, so you can make at least five borders.  You want the fabrics to be of the same tone, and colors that look well together.  

You want to think about what your central block will be.  Above are five different examples of blocks that you could make a medallion quilt out of.  The bright blue one and and the green basket block are pieced.  You can piece one of your favorite blocks and use it for the center.  You can use a block from a panel or fussy cut part of a design from a piece of fabric to use.  Let's get started!

PART 1:  My friend, C, gave me some "granny fabric" and various strips of fabric.  These will make a great medallion quilt.  I have my central block on my design wall and lots of strips laid out on my table.  Instead of just framing my central block with borders of the same fabric all the way around, I am going to make it like a log cabin block, just big.  A log cabin block has darker fabrics on one side and lighter on the other.  On the top of the block and left side, I am going to sew on dark fabrics and on the bottom and right side, I am going to sew on light colored fabrics.

If you look at what you have gotten ready to start with and think you don't have enough of one type or another, think about where else you may have some similar fabrics and pull them out.  Looking at what I have on my table, I may decide not to use some of these, but use some others that I did not initially consider.

Cut your first couple of strips a bit shorter and put them up on the design wall to see how they look.  'Audition' other strips to see if they might work in the scheme you are planning  I like how these look.  Be sure not to cut your strips shorter until you are ready to sew them on. As you 'grow' your quilt, longer strips will be need with each border you add.

I think this light fabric with fronds of pink is beautiful, but it is too similar in color to the central block.  I don't want it right there.  I have to make a decision on each strip of fabric that I add to my quilt.

I want to make my log cabin design balanced.  Each of the four strips going around my central block will be the same length.  Most times we sew strips to the left and right, then longer strips across the top and bottom.  I am not going to do that.  You can, if you choose, when you make yours,.  Pin and sew the strip across the top, but stop an inch before you get to the end.  After sewing each stripe to your central block, press the seam outward (away from the central block).  Make sure you leave the end hanging free and floppy.  Then pin and sew the next dark strip on the left of the central block.  No floppy here.  Sew it clear across, and don't forget to press.  Then, sew a light strip clear across the bottom, then you will be ready to sew the last strip, on the right side.

Pull the flap, of the first stripe, back out of your way, and pin and sew the last strip on.

Press the last strip away from the center.  Then lay the first strip out, so you can finish sewing it down.  I press it a little, first, because mine usually get a little wrinkled before I get to sewing the end down. Then I pin and sew!  Trim any ends that may be sticking out from your block, so I looks nice and square (as opposed to looking wonky).  It is fine to have a rectangle, diamond, hexagon, whatever as your central block, so it may not be "square", but it needs to be square, as in having nice right angles.

My first border is sewed!  I put it back on the design wall and look at options for which strips to sew on next.

Play around with your colors and lights and darks until you think you have what you want to happen.  Keep sewing borders around, in the same process as the first one and "grow" your quilt top.  Keep it growing until you get to the size you want, or until you it think it looks the way you want. At that time, the quilt top is finished.

This is my finished medallion quilt top.  See how it looks like the sunlight is gleaming off the lower right part of it?  

Let's finish this up.  Cut a piece of fabric a little bigger than your quilt top, to be the quilt backing. Cut a piece of batting, the same size as the backing.

Press your quilt top and the quilt back so they lay flat and smooth.  Then layer them, so you can do the actual quilting.  I use spray quilting adhesive to hold my layers together.  Sometimes I use big safety pins, pinned all around the top, to keep the layers from shifting while I am sewing on it.  If you use safety pins, do not run over them with your sewing machine,  I use my home sewing machine.  I am going to stitch-in-the-ditch, using my walking foot.  I have some cotton gloves with grippy finger tips to help me hold the fabric as I feed it under the walking foot.  Then of course, you could always just take it to your favorite, local, long-arm quilter and pay them to quilt it for you,

Here is my finished medallion quilt.  After I quilted it on my machine, I found some brown thread and hand stitched around the cross to make it stand out more.  I used more of the fabric C gave me, and put a floral binding on it to complete it.  All done with the first one!

PART 2:  I have decided on that cute bear for my central fabric in this one.

I have put some of my fabrics up with the bear block, to see how they go.  I have pulled out some fabrics that I think might work, or that I hope will work.  

I like that light black batik with little bits of aqua and pink in it. It is perfect!  If you noticed, the last quilt had all the same width of strips in it.  I am going to use different widths of strips and some strips that are pieced, in this one.  I know pieced borders take extra time, but they are well worth it.  They will make your quilt more interesting and dynamic.  They also act as skill and confidence builders.   We can all use more skills and confidence!

Half-square triangles are a favorite type of pieced border.  Make them larger than you need, then square them up to the size you actually need.  They will all be nice and square! Then they fit perfectly together when you sew them into strips.

I want both of these fabrics in my quilt but I think I want them together in what I like to call a wedge border.  I make mine wonky for character. Make some, then if you find you don't have quite enough, just make some more.

My pieced wedges fabric is on the left. After I sew together a long strip of that, I press it well, then cut it into two long pieces for my pieced border.  Below is how I make my pieced wedges:

Lay the piece you want to sew on, in position.  Because there is an angle, you cannot match it up exactly to the bottom piece.  You must look at the top piece, and find the point.  The end with the point gets moved off from on top of the bottom fabric.  It makes what looks like a dog-ear.  The opposite end of the top pies will expose the bottom fabric's corner.  My green fabric was a tick wider than my pink, so my bottom dog-ear (poking out) is not as big as the pink one, poking up at the top.  Where you see the two colors come together is where you needle should first go into the fabric when you start to sew the seam.  After you sew the length of the pink piece, press it and it should look straight instead of curving  If you make your initial width of your fabrics to be pieced, a couple inches too wide, then you have room to play and not worry about it being very straight.  After all, you are going to slice this into two equal strips, after it is pieced and pressed.

Back to the design wall!.   Here is my bear with some half-square triangles around him.  I love how it looks, so I will now sew them around my bear.

I've decided this grey with dazzle drops looks good.  I will still need another border before I put my other pieced border on. Hmmmm.

I think this pink, then more of that light black with color will do nicely  I want the pink border to be wider.  I don't want to be overwhelmed by evenness.  I need some space that the pink will give me, then the black will be narrow.  It will give the eye a place to rest.

I need to decide what border comes after my pink and green wedges border.

This blue is too bold.

Even as a narrow border, that dark black with bold pink is just toooo much.  I love the zig-zag, but I don't think it has a place in this quilt.

This photo shows it with all the borders sewed on, so far.  It looks pretty good.  Do remember: when you sew one piece of fabric to another, part of the fabric edge ends up in the seam allowance.  What does that mean?  Each border strip is going to be 1/2 inch less wide, when sewn in between two other fabrics, than before it is sewed.  For example, if the pink fabric is 3 1/2 inches, when you cut it, after it is sewed it is only 3 inches wide.  Your strips on the design wall are fatter than they will be after they are sewed. 

I decided on the green for the final border.  I like how it bleeds into the pink and green pieced border.  What a unique looking medallion quilt!

If you should make some pieced borders and decide not to use them in your medallion quilt, save them for a different quilt.  You just never know how awesome it can become.  I hope you like this tutorial and have gained some knowledge.  Now, give one a try and gain some skills and confidence!  Happy quilting!