Monday, October 3, 2016

Gwennie-Inspired Medallion Reveal

The day we've all been waiting for is finally here! I'm excited to see how everyone else's liberated medallion quilt tops turned out. In the meantime here's my story. (Do you have a fresh cuppa? You might want to go make one before you settle in.)

You may recall that I made liberated log cabin blocks in the first round when we were to be inspired by any aspect of childhood. (You can read about that here if you missed it.) That meant I had a real challenge when the next prompt came and it turned out to be log cabins. Rather than making more blocks I treated the whole medallion as a giant log cabin and only added some framing strips, Courthouse Steps style.


The next design prompt was stars. Seemed easy enough but I got stuck at that point. I had a few ideas, but without knowing what the final prompt would be I was afraid to make a move. That turned out to be a difficult month for me physically too. I fussy cut more images from one of the prints in my palette and randomly made a couple of stars but didn't build a single border.


The final prompt was completely unexpected: add something fishy. Given the nature of my medallion thus far I was driven to find some fish skeletons. And I did! In the right colors and scale to boot! But how to incorporate them in a way that made sense? How would fish skeletons come into the picture? Because cats had eaten the fish of course!


Cats are also fond of mice. The lower half of the quilt became a garden in my mind, the source of the roses in the baskets that started this whole adventure.


Along with the ubiquitous spiders of course. ;- )


I kept the creatures of the air in the upper half of the borders, with the exception of a few skeletons dancing in the star light.





And now, the whole quilt top:


I do have one more design decision to make. I'm debating whether to add final border strips, partly to bring the quilt closer to the size I was shooting for (although it's perfectly acceptable the way it is) and partly to frame the composition.


On the other hand, I don't want it to look like it's waiting for another border. These whole-cloth strips will mimic the strips in the Courthouse Steps round and I wonder if that will be redundant. I'm planning to bind the whole thing - eventually - in black. This shot isn't much to go on but I don't have much room to audition any further either. I'll only be adding 4" overall to the width and somewhere between 2" to 4" to the height if I go with the black border strips. I'll take all suggestions into consideration, thank you very much.

Now, if you haven't already, I highly recommend you to pop over to the link party on Lori's blog so you can see the whole gamut of liberated medallion quilts that have been created during this quilt along! This has been a really fun trip and I'm grateful to all the hostesses for making it so. :- )


18 comments:

  1. Amazingly creative, Sue. Where did you ever get so many fabrics with the right subjects and in the right colors? The black order would definitely work, especially because some of your blocks are light toned and seem to run off the edge. Congrats on a good finish, totally unique.

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  2. Wonderful quilt, so imaginitive! I love that it tells a story. The use of the roses print is perfect, so interesting.

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  3. This was my first QAL and I've enjoyed seeing the processes that bring each quilter to their end. I love your mauve, grey, cream black pallate it reminds me of the first Ghastlies line of fabric, ver Halloween inspired.

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  4. Wow! I think this is the most amazingly creative one yet! I love the idea of the cat and it fits in so perfectly with the rest of the quilt. Thanks for sticking to it. I love it!

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  5. Well, it was certainly worth waiting for! I love it from cats to spiderwebs, and all the stars and mice between. (And those fish skeletons! I'm now kicking myself because I've got a fat quarter of dishonest fabric and I never even thought of using it! Go you!!) Macabre Medallion for the win!
    Personally, I'd go for echoing those borders by adding a set around the outside, but I'm borders' biggest fan, so take my opinion with a grain of salt... 8)

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  6. It is fabulous! I love it completely, and it won't make a difference if you border or don't border, so far as it's wonderfulness is concerned!

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  7. I'm amazed (really amazed!) at the fabrics you were able to find to go with your theme. All in all, it's one very creative quilt. I vote for a border (or two) around the edge (if anyone's voting, that is).
    --Nancy. (ndmessier @ aol.com, joyforgrace.blogspot.com)

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  8. If it was mine, I'd give it a purple border, and then bind in black. Unless you can find a fabric that introduces one of your motifs: skulls, cats, spiders, bats, skeletons, etc, instead of the purple. I'm a border fan, so I'd want one, but as Susan says, it really doesn't need it and will be wonderful without.

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  9. Oh my....your quilt is very creative and full of details ! Wow !
    Great work for a great finish !!

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  10. Ugh! Left a long comment and blogger messed up again but, in a nutshell, it's amazing - love the Halloween vibe!

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  11. What a fun and creative quilt! I do like the idea of a black border, but if you bind it in black, maybe a wider then usual binding would work too.

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  12. Love how you managed to interpret all the themes, and end up with this creative, cohesive and beautiful quilt. So fun to have a close-up look and see all the amazing attention to detail. Wonderful!

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  13. I love how this turned out! Your cat and fish bones, brilliant!

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  14. I would add a narrowish outer strip of the black you plan to bind with (to stabilize all those edges and give you a bit of fabric in case you need to straighten edges after quilting. Then I would bind in the same black - I did this with a quilt last year and it worked fabulously - it looks as though it would work with your top, too. SO much detail - congrats on the finish!!

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  15. Fun interpretation of the fishy border! Love your quilt!

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  16. Such a moody interesting quilt! I like your idea for the black border. Narrow black border, bound with the same or slightly different black?

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  17. It looks like a fun project. My group toyed with such prompts (e.g. something fishy) on our round robin, but we chose a more open path. I would love to give something similar a try one day.

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  18. Wow, your quilt is marvelous!! Very creative, and so worth the wait. And, it's very "you", based on your blog over the years. I agree with Quiltdive Julie re: your borders, but you know, totally your choice!

    I've decided that one of mine is done without the fishy border - I'll put fish on the back. And the 2nd one is taken apart and waiting for me to re-do the star border. I do have an idea for the fish border, hopefully it works!

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