Friday, June 6, 2014

Modern Medallion Quilt Along - Week One

This week has brought the beginning of the Modern Medallion Quilt Along!  And for those of you playing along, I thought I'd give you a quick rundown of how the first step of this pattern went for me, along with a couple of tips/pointers.

First of all - make sure if you are using low volume fabrics in your quilt that you have a TONNE of them!  I was really worried about not having enough, until I did my fabric pull and found 37 fat quarters!  Doh!  I am at the finish line now and can tell you that I have used half to three quarters of each fat quarter!  That's a lot of low volume!

I spent some time yesterday worrying about my perceived lack of low volume fabrics, given how much I'll need for my #modernmedallion quilt. Ummmm..... 10 minutes in the stash produced these. .... do you think I'll be right @2littleausbirds lol. #thankgodf

If you are unsure what qualifies as low volume, here's my take - any pale/light background fabric that has a print on it!  So they could be anything from white to pink/blue etc, as long as they are a pale tone.  One trick to help can be taking a photo of your fabrics, then editing it to black and white, and you will be able to pick out the lighter and darker tones.

Now, on to the construction.

Ok @2littleausbirds @gnomeangel I've put aside my freakin out and come up with these!  #fingerscrossed #modernmedallionquiltalong 

The pattern calls for lots of Improvisation piecing and wonkiness.  I can tell you now that this has been incredibly difficult for me to embrace!  Drawing up my NYB Contest paper piecing patterns was excruciating, and took lots of patience.  I DID NOT use a compass or anything trace-able - I literally free hand drew them.  As you can obviously see above!  The one thing I could not let go however, was the points.  I am a strong believer in triangle points not being lost!!!

It's a very good thing I have to go out for lunch!  Unpicked twice and cut fabric twice....... frustrated!

The sewing together of the arcs with triangles was super easy - I would like to think I am a pretty advanced paper piecer, so it did not worry me at all.  But the arcs.  THE ARCS!!!!!!  I am also a pretty experienced curves put-together-er, but this had me absolutely freakin stumped!  Because I had no pattern as such, I just could not get the sizing of the fabric pieces correct, and was incredibly grateful for a two hour lunch date with a friend that day.  I'd already unpicked the black centre piece twice before lunch, but returned home with a calmer exterior and curved the s*it out of it!!

So my biggest tip for this part of the pattern - PATIENCE.  Take is slow.  Have your unpicker close by ;)

This is how my centre medallion looked when finished....


As you can see - the wonkiness was well and truly pulled off!  If I had to do it again, I think I would have used four different fabrics for the centre pieces - but - I still love it!

Pop over to Schnitzel & Boo later on today, where Kristi will share her week of 
Modern-Medallion-ing!

And if you stop by here on Monday, I will have a tutorial for you for the drunken geese border!  Have a fabulous weekend! xxx

4 comments:

  1. What a great idea for a quiltalong - your centre medallion is stunning.

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  2. Love this - love your work. I agree there's a lot of wasted fabrics in this quilt - there's enough scrap left over at the end that you could make a whole new scrappy version of another pattern. I'm also doing the MATO and I found it to be the same - although that is a pattern based on using a very large scrap pile. Think it might be the nature of the medallion and it's origins. Loving your version and can't wait to see the tutorial on Monday!

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  3. You made me laugh ! Your centre is wonderful and shows none of the angst you felt while making it. Looks lovely.

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  4. I like the dark center. It looks like one piece of fabric that somehow gets a bit wonky on the edges.

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