Swirling Medallion - Ta Da!

Let me introduce you to my Swirling Medallion Quilt. She is about 42" square. She was made following the Swirling Medallion Quilt pattern in Quilting Modern, which is a book by Jacquie Gehring and Katie Pederson.

Swirling Medallion (maybe she needs a better name, I shall have to think on that) is made from Briar Rose fabrics by Heather Ross and Kona Snow, with a scrappy binding of more Briar Rose.



I am so pleased with this little quilt. I was having so much fun making her that I added two extra rounds to the pattern - it seems that I have some trouble sticking exactly to the rules.



I quilted her with a swirling diamond line, swirling out from the centre, using an cream coloured Aurafil 50wt thread. So the quilting line is not quite parallel to the lines of colour as it is just one long continuous swirl. It is also not quite straight and each round is about 1/2" give or take from the one before it. Again, my usual modern industrial approach to quilting.



You can tell by all these pictures that I love how this quilt crinkled and softened up after washing. I also really enjoy how the improv triangles come together. In the book, Jacquie and Katie refer to this improv method of piecing HST like units as stitch and flip. It is fun and fast and gives a sparkly sort of result, I plan to do a lot more stitch and flip triangles in the future.



You can see the difference in the quilt after washing from the picture above which is before the wash. Lovely but flat. (You can also see the fold across the middle, which annoys me but disappears after the quilt has been unfolded for a while.)



For the back I used a Kona yellow - I am not sure which one - and some more Briar Rose. I machine stitched the binding using the method my friend Marianne from The Quilting Edge patiently explained to me over a couple of lunches - she also has a tutorial here. I am pleased to report that I am getting good at this, and got all four corners stitched down nicely on the first try.



I had the great pleasure of taking a course from Jacquie Gehring at QuiltCon. She is just as wonderful in person as I had imagined from reading her blog for years. Quilting Modern is well worth having, it is full of both well explained techniques and inspiring projects.



One last photo. I seemed no matter what I did, this quilt photographs so you can see the quilting lines nicely on two kitty corner sides and not on the others - some lighting mystery or other.

It turns out that it is Craft Book Month at Craft Buds. We can link one project made from a craft book -- and conveniently this project was made from a craft book. Maybe I will see you there with your project too.

I am going to link up to Sew Cute Tuesday at Better Off Thread and Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story this week too (buttons on the right side), see you there.

It has been a less than productive weekend, as my elderly cat is doing very poorly, despite a unexpected visit to the vet. Tonight is the turning point I think, hope for the best, as she is a very good friend to us all, especially my son. edited Monday morning: Our dear cat passed away in her sleep last night. She had a fine and very long 17 years of  comfortable cat life, and we are glad she shared it with us.


Best,

Leanne

ps, I signed up for as an Amazon affiliate and the Amazon links are part of that program now.