Another new quilt start...Marcelle Medallion

After a few weeks of very pleasant (if not too easy on the eyesight) hand sewing, I managed to get my Marcelle medallion central star stitched up and completed early last week (I think, I am losing track!). After reading up on quite a few of the quiltalong posts and tutorials from a couple of years ago, I chose to English paper piece this star in order to avoid the dreaded y-seams and keep my points nice and precise. I found the epp trickier than I anticipated; the shapes were bigger than the hexies I usually work with and a little harder to work with, and by the time I came to joining the 4 quarters together, they had been handled quite a lot already from joining all the component pieces, so the paper was slipping out in places where I had been relaxed about securing them in place.

Having said all that, I was really very pleased with how it turned out. The points aren't competely perfect but I don't think that's too noticeable (I hope not!) and its lying relatively flat. I like the 3d effect from using different values in the star points. I decided to put on the first border straight away to stabilise it a little and made a quick decision to use a texty fabric in a ruler print. The comination of this against the dark purple star points and the poor light in the photo makes it look quite a bit darker than it is in reality.  It does feel lighter and brighter in real life, although I think the dark purple print is dominating it more than I anticipated, and making me reconsider my original plan for the colours for the next triangle border. I had intended using a variety of purple and lilac prints, but now I am pondering other colour combos....if you have any ideas, please do share!

I do love the process of making medallions, and am so glad I started this one. It will be my 3rd medallion quilt, I've done a Made to Measure (Sarah Fielke's beautiful pattern), and I did a baby medallion a few years ago as part of the Modern Quilters Ireland medallion-along. Serendiptiously, Modern Quilters Ireland are running a Round Robin Bee, and encouraging members to sew along on medallion quilts if we are not participating in the Bee (which I am not this year), so I am going to sew along with them for part of the Bee at least.

A Made to Measure Medallion Finish

It seems slightly surreal that this quilt is actually finished. I have been working on it for a long, long, long time - started last April, to be precise. So, 15 months...I know that's not a record for a quilt finish. I know this because I have a quilt top hanging in my sewing space awaiting quilting for coming up on 3 years now. (Sssshhhhhh. Don't tell.)

I also feel like I've been working on it forever because it has been such a challenging, intricate piece of work. I know there are plenty much more complex quilt patterns out there, with more difficult sewing required, but I find medallions pretty challenging and this had a LOT of tiny piecing. Those little star cornerstones were the worst bit - there was a lot of heavy sighing as I cut them and no small amount of swearing as I pieced them.

 

And all (ALL) the HSTs and the trimming.

That's why it took so long. I had to build myself up to each of the detailed borders. (Or I'm just lazy. I'm a sucker for a quick 'n' easy quilt pattern.)

Plus, the fabric choices weighed heavily in my mind the whole time I was making it. This was a  kind of "suck it and see" quilt. I made it up as I went along. I kind of had jewel tones in my head as the theme and I worked along those lines.

Part of me wishes I had chosen a low volume grey print for that big "quiet" border in the middle instead of the dotty cream print, to cool the tones a little. Also my pink and orange hst border merged into itself more than I intended, but I had gone too far with it before I realised. And no way could I face cutting all those HSTs again. But I still think it works ok. Possibly slightly differently than I originally intended, but lovely all the same.

I do absolutely adore that huge 2nd last border with the HST-turned-into-flying-geese. I think the fabrics work so perfectly right there and the mix of low volume prints as background was exactly what I wanted. When I saw that, that was what made me wish that I had used the low volume instead of the cream border. But hey ho, that's how it goes.

Some insane part of my brain insisted that this quilt should be hand quilted. I've done lots of hand quilting in my time, a lot of mini quilts and one lap quilt, but this is the first time I've entirely hand quilted a proper size quilt without doing some machine stitching in the ditch to secure it.

I was nervous about it, but it worked really well. Very honestly, I found the weight of the quilt and its size very hard to manoeuvre when working on it, particularly at the start when I was quilting the centre and I had a lot of trouble with my neck ending up with an irritated nerve which caused constant pins and needles down both arms into my little fingers for weeks on end. That also delayed the finish by weeks as the doctor insisted I put down all my crafty stuff for 2-3 weeks to let it heal enough to treat. So I'm not sure I would tackle a project this size again by hand - weeks of physio to resolve it was not on my list of anticipated outcomes. But having said that, I do absolutely adore the process of hand quilting and I think the issues I had were solely due to the size and weight of the quilt - possibly my technique is not the best from a health perspective. And there is no getting away from the fact that I really enjoyed sitting on the sofa hand quilting it in the evenings. It's much more sociable than sitting at my machine, away from my hubby in another room. So I won't be abandoning the hand quilting. Just maybe keeping it to slightly smaller projects :-)

 
Hand quilting looks so great too, and this pattern really lends itself to the hand quilted big stitch look. I used perle cotton #8 in a variety of colours and shades and quilted mostly 1/4" inside or outside the seam lines except in that big cream border where I quilted triangles to add to the interest.  I think my very favourite part of the hand quilting is the central star.

The hand quilting looks really great on the back too. The backing is the ever-used IKEA Nummer fabric. It was a particularly good choice for this quilt, as the black and white complements the front, and the quilting shows up so well on it.

I found a fab dotty grey and white print on a black background in The Crafty Fox in Drogheda the last time I visited my mum, and I knew as soon as I laid eyes on it that it was perfect for the binding for this. I don't know what the print name is, all I know is that its a Northcott fabric. I love how it frames the quilt. I took the lazy way out and machine stitched my binding. By the time I got to that stage, I was hand-stitched out and the pins and needles in my hands and arms were returning and I needed to get it done in time to wash and dry it before delivering it to my mum and dad on Sunday. So I speedily stitched the binding down and it was done. Must do more machine binding - it was so quick! Although I do love hand stitching down the binding normally.

I know I moaned about the cornerstones earlier. But truly, they were totally worth the effort. They look fab all done and lined up, don't they?

 

So, now this quilt is off to my mum and dad to celebrate 40 happy years of marriage, a milestone they hit a couple of weeks ago. (Yes, I am late. But I don't think they will mind!)

Some stats - this quilt measures 80" x 80" so perfect for a double bed, or would even work fine on a king size without draping down the sides. It's made from Sarah Fielke's Made to Measure pattern in her book Hand Quilted with Love. Fabrics are a wide and varied mix mostly from my stash. My Irish friends contributed lots of the oranges for the pink and orange HST border in an impromptu scrap swap when I asked for some help :-) Batting is Simply Cotton. It is machine pieced, and 100% hand quilted with perle cotton #8.

It is, without doubt, my favourite quilt I've ever made. And certainly, my biggest quilting achievement to date. If I have learned one thing in 15 months of making it, it is that it is most certainly worth taking the time and putting in the effort to make something detailed and lovely. Quick and easy (my go-to) is not the be-all and end-all. Hope my parents love it as much as I do. (Ok, well, I know my mum loves it as she has seen the quilt top at various stages of development and raved each time, so I'm pretty confident!) To paraphrase Mr Bennett in his conversation with Elizabeth at the end of Pride and Prejudice, I couldn't part with it to anyone less worthy. 

Linking up to Katy as one of my (sad, short little list of) Q2 finishes.

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.

Starting a new Medallion QAL......

Sewing and quilting do not bring out the logical in me. Nor, I suspect, in most of you either! Despite the fact that my Made to Measure medallion quilt top is still shaming me, hanging unfinished (but only 4 cornerstone blocks away from completeness) in my sewing corner, I still absolutely feel the need to start another. It's all Cindy's fault, obviously, kicking off a Medallion QAL over on the Modern Quilters of Ireland blog. If you want to join in, please do. You don't need to be a member, or even Irish, the more the merrier!!

I'm pretty intrigued by this QAL - we are going to be following Melanie's instructions to construct our own medallion design - so it's exciting and challenging and a little bit of a mystery. I have no plan yet. All I know is that I am making my Medallion a baby size one, as I have a few baby girl quilts to make.

I've been trying to pin down what pattern to use for my central block. I'm still not sure - but this is my inspiration.

Lots of prettiness in here, right? While I love some of the really complex ones, I'm not sure an unsuspecting baby girl needs to be the subject of my experiments with paper piecing. But you never know, maybe I'll be brave! I'm drawn to stars, but I've made lots of stars. So maybe I'll try something different. The retro flowers are calling to me too - I've seen this block set on point somewhere and like it a lot.

Anyways.....I'll mull it over for a few more days before deciding. In the meantime, here's my pretty little fabric pull - perfect for a little lady don't you think?

If you want to join in, please do. The first linky ends tonight (inspiration posts) or feel free to join in at the next linky if you want.

WIP Wednesday

Its been a productive week here at FairyFace HQ, I think maybe the sunshine is making things flow easier and faster! In any case, I have a lot of projects that I've managed to finish/make significant progress on.

In addition to some very satisfying finishes, I have been making progress on my Made to Measure quilt (from the Handquilted with Love book).

 

This is the first medallion quilt I've made and I'm really enjoying the process.  After making the centre and the first border, I decided to add a teal/aqua border with orange and purple pops as I didn't want to get stuck in a pink and orange colour scheme. I doubted this choice a bit, and I really wasn't sure about the purple border 3 when I was making it. But now that I've put on the grey Loulouthi last border (I have been hoarding that print for just the "right" project for a long time!) I am delighted with how its looking, I love the jewel tones. The next border is going to return to pinks and oranges again - the brighter the better! But all those HSTs, especially the teeny tiny ones for the star cornerstones, make for a lot of work so I might take a break for a few days.

I've also been basting hexies in the evenings when I'm sitting down in front of the tv. I cut these from fabrics in my scrap bin one weekend using my Go! Baby when I was trying to make some room in it - I have over 400 of them! I gave some to a friend, and started basting the rest. Not sure what I'm going to make with them yet, but I need a new cushion cover for my sewing chair, and I'm thinking I may use them for that - particularly as there are so many favourite scraps from lovely projects in there. They're small - the sides are only 1" long, but because they are that size, they were perfect for some of the teeny tiny scraps I had.

I'll keep adding to them until I decide! I have a lot more than I need though so I'm running a little giveaway for 100 of them over on Instagram where I am @sewfairyface - head over there and check out my photo for details of how to enter.

This week's finishes include my Kona tumbler quilt:

And my triangular Echo placemats:

I also tackled one of Ayumi's lovely projects in her book Patchwork Please! - the Prettified Pincushion. I found this a little bit tricky to make - mainly because of the tiny little blocks, and working with the Essex linen was a bit different to cotton. (I also think baby brain had a significant contribution to my messing up the blocks more than once). But in the end I rescued it, and it turned out very pretty and is sitting proudly on my sewing table.

So that's my very productive week. Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!