Medallion Quilt

Here is another quilt I had in my guild show last fall. It's a large quilt, about 108" square, so they had to fold the bottom up to hang it.  It was a guild challenge that started in 2018.  The idea was to start with a center medallion, whatever size and colors we wanted, and every month add a border that would be chosen at random by the challenge coordinator.  I usually do fused, machine stitched applique, but decided to do all the applique on this quilt by hand so it would have a softer feel on the finished quilt.  I did vow never to do hand applique again! :)   I was able to complete all the borders as they were announced, but took a long time deciding how to quilt it, and then actually quilting it.  I free motion quilt on a domestic machine, so a lot of 'wrangling' was required.

The guild show is not judged, but does have a viewers' choice award, which I was honored to win.  This is the first quilt I designed myself with no pattern, only following the directive of which type of border to do each month.  Also, I didn't buy any new fabrics, just used what was in my stash, so a win all the way around.  

Guild Challenge

Last year was the 25th anniversary of my quilt guild, and the year of their biennial quilt show, so the challenge for the year was to make a 25 inch square quilt which incorporated '25' in some way.  I decided to make a sampler with 25 different blocks, 25 different fabrics, and 25 flower petals, leaves, and berries in the appliqued border.  What a surprise to find out I won the challenge!

I made a couple labels for the back, one using all 25 fabrics, and one identifying all 25 blocks.

Time to update

Yes, my blog is in serious need of an update.  I've been so busy quilting since my last post  (yikes, almost 3 years ago?!!!)  that I haven't taken time to write about any of my projects since then.  Soon after that last post I joined a local quilt guild which has filled up my quilting time with lots of new projects.  It has challenges, charity projects, show and tell, a show every other year, workshops, etc.....all things that have kept me busy and involved.

One recent project came from a workshop I attended last fall on making a Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt. It was led by Penny Streeter from Penny's Patches, Troy PA.  The book includes a CD with templates to print, but doesn't include directions for the  6 inch blocks (111 of them) that make up the quilt. Penny collaborated with the book author and with the Electric Quilt company to put together paper piecing templates as an alternative way to make the blocks.  I had only tried paper piecing once before and didn't like it at all, but was game to give it another shot.  I'm really glad I did, because with the proper tools and Penny's excellent instructions, I found it worked well for me.  So far I've completed 100 blocks.