Blogger’s Quilt Festival Spring 2015 – Modern Medallion Quilt is finished!

Hello! Today I am entering my Modern Medallion Quilt into the Original Design category of the Blogger’s Quilt Festival!

I have taken part in almost every Blogger’s Quilt Festival since they started but I missed last Autumn’s. So it’s good to be back and showing this finished quilt for the first time!!

I made the quilt top last December for an evening course that I ran earlier this year. It was a bit of a rush to get it finished before I launched the 2015 prospectus so I didn’t have time to quilt it. You can read about this quilt’s beginnings in this post.

I chose this Riley Blake word search fabric for the back and spent a REALLY LONG time on the FMQ! I think about 12 hours which is the most I have ever spent on a quilt. But I wanted to try out a different design for each ’round’.
And now I want to show them all off to you so prepare for a photo heavy post!

For the centre I tried out some big spirals with bubbles. This is a pattern I tried out on a Long Arm at the Angela Walters class I took at QuiltCon earlier this year, it’s very effective. And just so you know I have a Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0 domestic machine, no Long Arms yet for me!

I love quilting leaves but wanted to try a different approach here, these leaves are interlocking and veined. I also changed the colour of my Aurifil 50 on each round.
Above the leaves is a Paisley pattern I wanted to try out. I think this has more potential and I plan to expand on it in a future quilt.

This is a sort of mussel pattern variation in the corner blocks. Trudi showed me how to do the ‘mussels’ at Fat Quarterly Retreat a few years back and they are great fillers.

I wanted the Spools to ‘pop out’ more so I quilted tiny clamshells in between them added the hand quilting on the spools later with coloured perle cotton 8.
The top and bottom of the spools were meant to resemble knots in wood grain – not sure how well that works but it was a fun border pattern. More leaves in the yellow border above.

For the wide Twirling Stars border I quilted long lines of very meandering feathers. The last border got a simple daisy chain in yellow which really stands out against the Franklin hot pink fabric.

I missed out this ‘Ladder’ round which the square quilting. This was another pattern I tried for the first time with Angela Walters, it’s fun but stressful as you have to make so many quick decisions! And I do find curved lines easier than straight.
I little more hand quilting filled up those portholes in the corners.

The only bit I didn’t FMQ were the New York Beauty corners which got a little walking foot action and a last hand quilted detail.
For those of you who like to know this sort of thing the quilt is 171cm square (67 inches).

I took this quilt out to our field to photograph last week when the sun came out on an otherwise cloudy day. Here it is by our top pond, with views over to the Firth of Forth and the Kingdom of Fife.

At the top of our field my husband has recently built this gorgeous Gothic Arbour, so we can sit sheltered by the wind (and rain!) and enjoy the view. We can see the Forth Bridge from here. Would you like your own Gothic Arbour? Check out the details here.

Of course it also works rather well as a quilt prop!

Thank you so much for indulging me and getting through this very long post!

I hope you are enjoying the Blogger’s Quilt Festival and please head on over/back and check out more of the beautiful quilts.

As always a huge thanks to Amy for hosting this wonderful event!