March Scrappy Finishes Link Up!

I know I was not so hot on the blogging front this month so you're going to keel over at 2 posts in 2 days, but I couldn't let the last day of the month go by without the {Put Your Scraps to Work} Challenge link up.

How has your March been? Have you been scrappy happy?

This month, beside my Butterfly Medallion quilt which was made largely with scraps, I tackled a scrappy project that I have had in my sights for a LONG time.

I have a little IKEA ironing board that sits on my sewing desk beside my machine. I love it, it's so handy when I'm piecing. But it is stained and horrible and ugly now, after a few years pressing and fusing interfacing. So it needed to be prettified. And I had the perfect plan: a return to basic, simple, patchwork squares. Let the fabric do the talking.

I used the method in Randi's tutorial - it was easy to adapt it for my little board. I used some cord to do a drawstring closure which was very straightforward, and I added a layer of cotton batting underneath it so now it is lovely and padded and just about perfect. I love how nice it looks on my desk.

 So, I am looking forward to seeing what fun you've been having this month. Link up below :-)

Butterfly Medallion Quilt

Happy Mother's Day everyone, I hope you're having a lovely day. (Not sure my friends on the other side of the Atlantic are celebrating today but this side certainly are.) After a mega busy few weeks here in lovely Cork, I'm finally catching up on myself with some blog writing. First job is to finally post my Medallion QAL progress, which is happily a finish.

I had decided from the start to make this medallion in a baby size. Originally I was planning to stop at 40" square, but as the design-as-you-go process played out, I found that I needed to go a tiny bit bigger, so this stopped at 43".

The central block was a butterfly block, inspired by Megan's tutorial.

 

We used the process outlined by Melanie in her great tutorials. Alas, quilt maths is not my strong point and only a couple of borders in I managed to mess up my border width giving me a very challenging quilt top width to work with on the next border. After a LOT of trial, error, ripping and ranting, I finally got a triangle border to work.

 

Inpired by Cindy's border, I did square-within-square cornerstones on this border, fussy cutting some little girls for it, and I think this is the detail I love the most about this quilt.

 

 Each little girl is different.

I finished off with a skiny border and progressed quickly onto basting and quilting. I did wonder how the basting was going to work out, as I've found medallion quilts can look a bit ripply and don't lie quite flat when you're piecing the top, but I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was.

Love that crinkly texture that quilting with Aurifil 50wt gives my quilts. It just sinks into the quilt when you wash it and feels so lovely.

I used a bright and cheerful print on the back. One of the reasons I stopped at 43" rather than adding more borders was that I didn't want to piece a back because it would break up the effect of that lovely geometric pattern. (Plus, obviously, I'm lazy when it comes to piecing quilt backs).

You can see the third cornerstone in this picture too - I think that girl is my favourite.

Lastly the binding - what else but pink hearts for a baby girl?

This quilt has gone off to meet its new little owner, and I know that it will be very loved. It was a lot of work, with a lot of tiny piecing in it, but so very worth it. I think it is one of my favourite quilts I've ever made. It was made almost entirely from fabrics in my scrap basket and stash, with the exception of the binding and some of the background fabric. Just goes to show that scrappy doesn't have to mean mismatched and random but can be bright and pretty and together.

 

I'm linking up with the Medallion Quiltalong over on the MGQ Ireland page.