Time to put another quilt in the hoop! Once the Christmas tree goes up, there is zero room on the living room floor for pinning larger quilts. And hello? One thing that does
not need to happen around here during the holidays is an empty hoop! Those of you who enjoy hand quilting, totally know what I'm talking about. lol
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| Rising Sun quilt |
I put all the names of those interested in the
Kaffe floral vase panel {offered in the previous post},in a bowl today and drew out the lucky person. Congratulations GranChris! You are the winner! I'll get it into the mail asap after getting your mailing address.
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| Looking a little closer |
It was wonderful to pull
this quilt top out and finally start making a plan for quilting. I had a very good pattern I was following for this particular quilt and then... Well, it just wasn't working for me anymore. During the making of it, I finally stumbled into a better solution {for me} and then had to laugh at myself for being so contrary about following a pattern.
Growing pains are not always easy to transition through are they?
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Loving the sashing fabric I won long ago
from Barb |
And really, I think those growing pains might still be happening around here. I don't feel quite as betwixt and between as before, but there's still this underlying restlessness that I deal with pretty often in regards to quilting decisions. Especially in terms of starting in on new quilts. I second guess myself
all of the time. There are so many quilting ideas hanging out in my head and I really, really don't want to waste time on quilts that won't matter a lot to me in the long run.
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| A few false starts and now I've got it figured out.... |
Which I guess is pretty much the way I was feeling with the Basket Medallion quilt. So sad because it was a great learning quilt for me. Thankfully, I only have one other much older quilt top in the queue these days. All the rest only go back a year or two! And I have to remember that there is very real value in the learning and doing. It's how we get to the next step of
amazing ourselves with our wonderful creativity!
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| The Basket Medallion quilt is completed!! |
And you really can't go wrong with a quilt that has basket blocks in it! Right? Always a place for these in our repertoire. You better believe that I am not done making basket quilts any time soon.
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| Little basket blocks making up the last border |
Plus, this is a
medallion quilt. Something that I still love and adore making up as I go along. There are like a million different ways to work through a medallion style quilt and pretty much none of them are wrong. I am sure there are many, many more medallion quilts in my future....
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| A close up of the hand quilting... |
Very fun to work out the math. Play with various options in size and proportions. Get each pieced border to attach to the previous one like it was always meant to be.
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| And a closer look at the more subdued center baskets... |
Sure, if I could do things over, I'd change a few things about this particular quilt. For instance, the yellow sawtooth border has a funny way of turning and going around the corner. I didn't really know what else to do with it, but it bugs me just a little.
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| Six borders in all, counting the coping borders |
And I'd probably place the black hourglass corner blocks so that they were all presenting the same direction.
Maybe. But maybe not. I've always loved the energy and whimsy of them being different. One of my favorite things about any quilt is including something that feels unexpected.
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| The last larger quilt finish for 2018! |
The very best thing about Basket Medallion quilt being finished is now I can mark it off the list! It won't be nagging me or haunting me anymore and that feels so... good. Other than the doll quilt and a couple pot holders I'm making for my mom, this will be my last finish for 2018.
Linking up with the Peacock Party over at
Wendy's Quilts and More. It's a new 'quilt share' linkup with a more laid back philosophy than most linky parties. Gotta love that this time of year!
Truly love both of those quilts. You keep going all the way to the end. I just put on a five inch border and call it finished or no border at all. Always enjoy the quilt stories.
ReplyDeleteI really like your basket medallion quilt and for some reason I do not remember you ever mentioning this one!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this long post. I also followed links a few layers deep. I feel like I'm going through the same growth process. Now I know how to make medallion quilts, the basics of design and construction. I look at my pile of quilts and I love them, most of them. But making the same ones would not delight me anymore! Now they need to be different. That's part of why I took this year off (????) to learn more about shapes and using space and color and telling stories. It's been an interesting year and I don't think my quilts, whether medallion-format or not, will ever be the same. That's good! Anyway, you continue to put into words a lot of how I think. I feel like we are kindred spirits that way. Thanks as always.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for the shout out Audrey. I think hand quilters have an extra sense of responsibility to finish what they start. Some of my machine quilting friends can easily discard WIPs they no longer love, but us hand quilters feel obliged to finish everything! I'm not sure why that is, but I'm OK with that.
ReplyDeleteIt's a wonderful medalion quilt. Baskets are always a favorite and your handquilting texture is marvellous!! I wish I was making progress on quilting some of my tops...
ReplyDeleteHow do you decide which quilts to give away? I can see giving away older quilts that are just not 'you' anymore, or quilts made for group projects that you did not plan yourself, but as you get more attuned to making quilts that you LOVE--what happens then? I find that I can now only give away quilts that I specifically make for a friend or loved-one as my other quilts are so special to me.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your finish!
ReplyDeleteI like the little basket border, great piecing and hand quilting too.
And your new quilt is a beauty.
I really like the rich colors and hand quilting of the Basket Medallion. I have to admire people who make medallion quilts because I don't make them because I can never figure out what to make for each round. That's a different type of creativity, I guess. I can't even figure out what to make for a single border on a quilt. Congrats on the finish.
ReplyDeleteThe next one you have in the hoop always reminds me of dishes of pudding with cherries on top. Crazy, I know!
Your medallion quilt is awesome. Your unexpected solutions are a gem.
ReplyDeleteI always love your color combinations...
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on finishing your medallion. One of my resolutions for next year is to try and clear my older quilts before I stop caring about them. Mind you, I like the colours and shapes of this a lot and find it very restful to look at.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember seeing your Kaffe vase before, so very different and I love the shape of the vase. Congratulations on the finish of your Medallion!!
ReplyDeleteThose peppermint pinwheels in the border make this a great quilt to work on for the holidays. Clever you!
ReplyDeleteAnd I love your Medallion quilt just the way it is. Quirky and all. Love the colors, love medallions, love the baskets. Yum.
beautiful!
ReplyDeleteHi Audrey! It's wonderful to read through your last few posts. You're still making the most wonderful folk art quilts. Of course you are, that's what you do! I absolutely love the primitive vases in this post and the tall flowers a few posts back. And the medallion and the yellow one and all of them, really.
ReplyDelete