Astrid's "GweFre" Quilt is Fabulous!

I had so much fun designing this quilt and making the "parts".  I have some parts left over, that will likely go into another tribute quilt.  Jane is thinking of doing a vertical row quilt and include some of the parts.  I think Jane and I will do some collaborative quilting!

Marsha took this photo of my quilt and I.  It is considered a medallion quilt, which is one of the types Gwen Marsten wrote an entire book about and hosted classes on.  The color scheme is all Freddy.

What's on the Design Wall in January?

Edna has been visiting us since Thanksgiving.   She really enjoyed all the medallion quilts, so she decided to start another one.  She used some cute monster fabric for the center and has been building it outward.  

She is using the "liberated" piecing style.  She made it deliberately wonky.  It gives the quilt a lot more interest and character.  I can hardly wait to see it when it is finished.  She promised to send us more photos.  Edna is leaving us tomorrow, to return to Sacramento.  We have very much enjoyed her visit. 

Six Medallion Quilts Completed in 2021

Greetings and well wishes to all in this holiday season.  I am happy to say it has been a productive year, as it concerns quilting and blogging.  If you remember back to January, Jane did her annual "Jane's January Tutorial" on medallion quilts. I, Kirsten, was the last one to finish.  That being said, we have six amazing medallion quilts to show off in this post.

Yesterday was Christmas, and we all got together and had a fun time.  I put up my quilt and Jane took a photo of me with it.

Someone rumored that I had used one of the centers that Jane had on her board last January, and they would be right.  I used the basket block.  

November, Edna showed us her medallion quilt.

In the high heat of June, Marsha showed us her medallion quilt.

In March, Jane completed her second one, and showed it off for us.

In February, Astrid finished her fancy pink medallion quilt.

This is the first one Jane did, as the main one in her tutorial, last January.  She taught us a lot, and I am impressed with all the different versions of medallion quilts we came up with.  Each one is unique.  If you would like to try making one, please visit the January 2021 post to learn all about it.  Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

No turkey quilts here!  But we had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Edna made it out here, to see us for the holiday, and we had so much fun!  We had a wonderful dinner, some relax time, and lots of visiting.

It was so good to see Edna.  Astrid came; I had not seen her in a little bit.  Marsha and Willa came, and Willa wore her pilgrim lady bonnet.  She is so cute!  Then, of course, there is Jane and I, too.

We had a lot of show and tell.  Edna brought her medallion quilt to show us all.  Her fabric choices are fabulous! I have to get my medallion quilt finished, then I think we will post all of them in one post, so everyone can see them all together.  

Tulip Medallion Quilt

Things are heating up here, literally.  We are staying in with the A/C and getting some quilting done.  Or at least we are getting some planning, cutting, and sewing done.  Marsha has finished her medallion quilt.  We drove over to a shady place, on Sunday evening, and took a photo of Marsha and her quilt.  

We love it.  It seems this is the year for pink in our quilts, or maybe I am delusional.  Must be the heat.  Kirsten is the only one who has not completed her medallion quilt.  We don't even have a clue about what she is doing, so maybe she is not working on it yet.  I will have to do some nosing around.  Astrid said, she thought she had taken one of my center blocks, that I used on the tutorial in January, as her central focus.  

     We need to find out if The Fair is happening this year.  If so, we need to decide which quilts we are entering.  We have made quite a few over the last year and a half.  

A Bear of a Medallion Quilt

Marsha came over to show Jane and I (Kirsten) her completed four patch quilt.  It turns out, Jane had just got the binding finished on her second medallion quilt.  It is the one with the bear in the center.  She did the stitch-in-the-ditch for most of the quilting on her quilt, then she did a big, kind of, zig-zag stitch around the borders.  It rather mimics the angles of the hash marks in the fabric design.  I think it is an eye-popper.

Jane helped Marsha hold up her quilt, so I could take a photo.  It has a big four-patch scrappy design.  It certainly turned out lovely. 

Marsha has been busy working on her medallion quilt, too.  Maybe next time we get together, we can see it.  Of course, I have barely got a plan for my medallion quilt.  But I made some new valances for our quilt room, from the cute pineapple fabric I picked up in February when we went to Nyssa, OR, and spent a little time at the Country Corners Quilt Shop.

Valentines Day Medallion Quilt

Astrid completed her medallion quilt.  She started with some scraps from some Buggy Barn horse quilt her friend 'C' was making.  She made her center from those greens and whites, then put a frame around it, in the style she saw in a quilt at the Black Butte Quilt Show (near Sister, OR) in 2018.  It was an amazing basket quilt by Diane Nait Kelly.  Astrid used pink as her main background fabric, instead of yellow and did just one border of square blocks all around the edge to frame up this fabulous medallion quilt.

Astrid quilted this one on her home sewing machine and she used pink thread to match the top and the back. The back is some left over paisley from Kirsten's stack n whack quilt.

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!