Linky party open!

Morning all - hope everyone had a great Easter weekend and the Easter eggs were plentiful!  Apologies for opening the linky late this month - managed to get a bit of a flu and spent the weekend getting better.  So better late than never it's time to post an update on any progress on medallion quilts and our round robin bee!  Random number generator will chose a winner for Cindy's very generous prize of €20 euro voucher to spend on fabric @ Fluffy Sheep Quilting.

One of our bee's has just come back from a trip travelling in Asia so while she is making her starting block for me to add to, not having any progress on our round robin to share, I thought I'd share some medallion quilts I love for inspiration and what I learned about solid borders when making my first medallion quilt.

Image from first special edition of Love Quilting and Patchwork

Two of the most popular medallion quilt patterns in recent years are the Marcelle Medallion by Alexia Abegg and Made to Measure by Sarah Fielke. What really caught my eye on both of these is the use of black to add frames in the quilt drawing you into the centre block and the clever use of fabric in the prints used for borders (chevron and scissors above!)

Made to Measure quilt in Sarah Fielke's book Hand Quilted with Love

Sarah made a beautiful version of this quilt shown here in our gallery of our Happiness exhibition and I really like this one by Lynne@ Lily's Quilts in soft greys. Doing a quick search on pintrest using Marcelle Medallion will show you some amazing medallion quilts.  These are just some of the ones people have shared.

So what I learned in making my first medallion quilt, is that, in addition to making the length of the quilt easier to work with, adding a solid/un-pieced border can have some other very beneficial effects when making a medallion quilt.  Melanie @ Catbird Quilts has a really good series on making a medallion quilt and we followed her guidelines during our last QAL. 

This is as far as I got last time and there is one more round yet to be added to finish it.  In the making of this quilt top, I experienced 2 problems.  The first problem is the checkerboard border I used to frame my starting block was a bit stretchy and pulled my rectangle out of shape, when I added it.  Adding the first border by measuring and taking the average helped but adding a second border helped more.  It's still not right and I'm hoping blocking it will sort it out as I really don't want to unpick back but might have to!

I used Melanie's advice about using an un-pieced border to add some place for the eye to rest.  After adding in the low volume border the next round of diamonds was too busy against the checkerboard so I trimmed the first border down and added in the pink chevron to add a frame and give a resting place.  It's a skinny second border but without it the quilt wouldn't work so well at all!

Love this mad border by Sarah Fielke

But if you really like a pieced border check out this crazy pieced one again by Sarah Fielke from her book Hand Quilted with Love.  Am very tempted to try this sometime!

So onto the linky party.  Click on the button below to link up your progress!
-Ruth

Medallion QAL Second Border Linky

How is your medallion quilt coming along? I've seen several beautiful center blocks floating around blog-land. We have a wide variety ranging from a New York Beauty or a Dresden Plate to Retro Flowers or a Bento Box.  One of our members is is even using hexies to create a story in her center block!  How cool!  I really enjoy seeing each quilter's personality starting to appear given their design choices and color pallets.

Now that we are off to a kicking start, do you have a plan for each of your borders?  Over the past two weeks we have added the second border.  I am sure you are now noticing your quilt top rapidly growing and eating up your scrap bin!  We would all love to see what borders you decided to add on, so please do leave your link below.  Are you a flying geese girl or HST lover?

Our next challenge is the third border as described by Catbird Quits.  For Track 1 folks, this is a 2 inch border followed by a 6 inch border bringing your quilt top to 48 inches.  Melanie takes time in this post to describe how you might use these borders to deal with "size issues", so if you're in trouble it's worth a read.  Now that these borders are getting quite large (and eating lots of time and fabric) why don't we take 3 weeks to stitch these borders?  Meet you all back here on 26 March for our next linky.

An InLinkz Link-up

Medallion QAL Linky Party

I am delighted you have decided to join in our Modern Irish Medallion QAL!  Have you been busy daydreaming about what your medallion quilt will look like?

I hope by now you have taken the time to read through Melanie's first post, giving us our guidelines for getting started.  Do you think you're going to follow the clearly described Track One, or are you more a Track Two free spirit?

Over the last two weeks we were to each create an inspirational mosaic and dig through our stash to pull fabrics setting the tone for our quilt.  Maybe you're an over achiever and have already started stitching your first central block for your quilt.  Each and every one of us would love to gain inspiration from your mosaic or drool over your fabric pull!  Please leave a link to your blog post below and we'll all hop over there for a peek and a giggle.  Be sure to visit the other links you see below and offer advice and encouragement.

Over the next two weeks, here is your challenge:  Re-read the QAL first post and create your central block for your medallion quilt.  Seeing as this is only one 15 inch block and we have two weeks to sew, go on and read the QAL second post and make your first border.  This will give you a 24 inch square quilt top.  Come back here on 19 Feb and link up to show everyone your medallion quilt center.  Happy stitching!