Medallion-ing Along in scrappy style

Being on annual leave is great. It's been a really productive week here in my house and I have piles of things to show you over the course of the week.

For now, I'm going to stick to Medallions.  Posting my inspiration mosaic last week worked exactly as inspiration mosaics are supposed to work. I was, really, truly inspired. I loved every single one of those blocks (as I should, I spent ages whittling down my list), but the ones that really caught my imagination used curved piecing - the butterfly and retro flowers block. I did a bit more browsing around online trying to figure out block construction for them, then took out the Accuquilt Go! Baby and got cutting. First I tried the butterfly block - inspired by this tute by Megan of Canoe Ridge Creations. I needed to change up the measurements a bit for my block but it worked beautifully. The first one I made used yellow scraps - nice, but a bit insipid for a central block. So then I tried a pink version using all pink scraps. Bingo. I added a white border to bring it up to the recommended size (15.5")

I fell head over heels for it and my path was set. (I also then tried a retro flowers block which worked fabulously too - but I made that into a different quilt) Next I neeed to add the borders. The QAL offer a few different options for how blocks and borders work. Because mine is not set on point, I needed to add a couple of borders. Firstly, I added a lovely Tanya Whelan paisley print. Then I pondered what to go for on the 2nd border. I originally thought about triangles but then decided on HSTs. I've done a similar border in my Made to Measure quilt top (she who is still unfinished 8 months later, shame, shame) and love how those triangles appear to whirl around the central block, bringing so much movement to the quilt.  I used a low volume grey print for the background, and I cut some more scrappy squares to halve for HSTs. This brought the quilt top up to 24.5"

If you're following me on Instagram you'll know I've already done another couple of borders which soften out the brights a little bit but I want to keep track with the QAL linkys here on the blog so I'll post that the next day. I need to start the next pieced border tomorrow - I'm thinking triangles for this one (I have loads of pretty ones leftover from the triangle quilt, it would make really good use of them) and for the cornerstones, economy blocks sized down slightly. What do you think? Any other suggestions? For now, I'm going to sit back with a mid-week-it's-allowed-because-I'm-on-annual-leave-this-week glass of wine, and admire what I've done so far.