mystery medallion 2016

The Crystal Lake Modern Quilt Guild is sponsoring a new challenge this year - a Mystery Medallion program where we each create a quilt center block of any size to start and add a border each month for the next five months. The fun (or challenging) part is that no one knows what the requirements for each of the five borders will be; they are revealed month by month. So no planning or scheming ahead of time - just jump in and make it work each month!

My quilt center is an English Paper Pieced (EPP) star on a background of "made fabric" (a bunch of low volume scraps sewn together), and it measures 22.5" square.  The star is machine appliqued to the background with a short straight stitch around the outside edge.

The background fabrics were left over from blocks I made for a quilt shop sample in 2014; it hung there as a sample for quilt kits they were selling, and after that I'm not sure where it ended up. The "plus" blocks were made from a pattern found here.  I really did love it, so one day soon I'll have to make another and keep it for myself (adds yet another project to the much too long already project list.)

The hexagons in my quilt center were made even before 2014 when I was first learning how to EPP one spring break vacation in Florida. I was never sure what to do with them, and at one point they were sewn together in rows. Maybe I was planning to put them on some pillows? Who knows!

But sometime last year I saw a photo of a star made from hexagons so I took the rows apart, and sewed them into the large star shape composed of 73 hexagons. So the star and the background piece have been hanging around on the design wall for quite some time just waiting to be used in a project.

The whole point of a Mystery Medallion Challenge is to let go of control and practice your design and color skills each month when the new border requirements are revealed. At our meeting last weekend we learned that January's border must include snowball blocks and use the color red violet.

RED VIOLET?! Sweet - one of my favorite colors, and I happen to have lots of it in my stash.  I gathered a few fat quarters that were primarily red violet, tossed in a couple more that were primarily yellow (but still contained pink/violet), added a stack of more low volume scraps, and started cutting.

Since my center square measured 22.5" I needed to add a "spacer" border to increase the size to 24.5" in order to accommodate the 4" snowball blocks I planned.  This Peppered Cotton in Fog by Studio E has just enough contrast to set it apart from the backgrounds, but it doesn't overwhelm and grab all the attention.  It was cut at 1.5" width to finish at 1".

The 28 snowball blocks are each 4" finished, so now the quilt center measures 32.5".  I cut each center of the snowballs at 4.5" square and each corner background fabric at 1.75" square.  You can find a handy tutorial for making snowball blocks here.  Mine look more like stop signs (I probably should have made the corner pieces smaller) but whatever - I love how it's turned out!

Even if you aren't a member of CLMQG, you can follow along and make your own Mystery Medallion quilt.  Each month the new border requirements will be posted on our website, and photos of members' progress can be found on our Facebook page.

Inspiration of the Week in Kansas City

Exciting news! Some modern quilters in Kansas City find me inspiring this week...

My Improv Challenge Baby Quilt was featured Tuesday on the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild blog as the "Inspiration of the Week".

Thanks to Sarah from the KCMQG for choosing my quilt. You've made my week :)

improv challenge baby quilt finish

My improv challenge baby quilt was finished in time for our last Crystal Lake Modern Quilt Guild meeting a couple of weeks ago, but I just finally got some decent photos yesterday thanks to my helpful volunteer - Thing 1!

I free-motion quilted it with randomly spaced vertical wavy lines, some closer than others, with a couple of sections of wonky log-cabin-like stitching to repeat the shape of the blocks in the negative space.

I used a lime-green thread, and even though you can't really see the color unless you look closely, I think it gives the negative space a lot more zing than just a plain white thread.

I washed the quilt right after it was completed (an entire day before deadline, thank you very much!) because I was a tad disappointed with my quilting stitches. I'm sure it was hot up in the sewing room, so I probably tried to speed through the quilting process and because of that my stitch lengths were very inconsistent. But the puckering from the wash and dry does an excellent job of hiding those flaws.

 

A fun Michael Miller dot backing and a black and white stripe binding cut on the bias give it a little extra zip!

My guild is in the early planning stages of hosting our own quilt show, so I'll probably hang on to this quilt until that takes place. But after that, I'm not sure. It's okay to have a pile of quilts that you made for the sole purpose of learning a new skill or even just for the joy of working with the fabrics, right?

Yeah, that's what I thought, too :)

One more question: I used to prefer the crisp look of a quilt before washing, but now I really love the softness and texture (and flaw-concealment!) that only washing and drying can provide :) Do you prefer washed or unwashed??

Improv Piecing Challenge quilt top done!

My modern quilt guild challenge project is due next week! Today I finally got the top pieced...

It's baby quilt size - about 39" x 44". Wow - it is so much harder to piece odd-sized/shaped blocks than I expected! I didn't want any bias grain along the outside edges of the quilt, so the whole thing took more planning than I anticipated. Originally I intended to have the column of blocks in the right third of the quilt, with the other 2/3 to the left just open (negative) space. But after piecing it that way, the symmetry-loving part of my brain said, "ummm, NO!" So now it's sort of large 9-patch layout, which makes me happy.

Looking at the photo just now, I feel like it needs a little more white on the top and bottom to balance it out - maybe just 2"-3" each. What do you think?

My next step is to find a fun backing and get busy quilting!