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Monday, February 22, 2016

Another new quilt start...Marcelle Medallion

After a few weeks of very pleasant (if not too easy on the eyesight) hand sewing, I managed to get my Marcelle medallion central star stitched up and completed early last week (I think, I am losing track!). After reading up on quite a few of the quiltalong posts and tutorials from a couple of years ago, I chose to English paper piece this star in order to avoid the dreaded y-seams and keep my points nice and precise. I found the epp trickier than I anticipated; the shapes were bigger than the hexies I usually work with and a little harder to work with, and by the time I came to joining the 4 quarters together, they had been handled quite a lot already from joining all the component pieces, so the paper was slipping out in places where I had been relaxed about securing them in place.



Having said all that, I was really very pleased with how it turned out. The points aren't competely perfect but I don't think that's too noticeable (I hope not!) and its lying relatively flat. I like the 3d effect from using different values in the star points. I decided to put on the first border straight away to stabilise it a little and made a quick decision to use a texty fabric in a ruler print. The comination of this against the dark purple star points and the poor light in the photo makes it look quite a bit darker than it is in reality.  It does feel lighter and brighter in real life, although I think the dark purple print is dominating it more than I anticipated, and making me reconsider my original plan for the colours for the next triangle border. I had intended using a variety of purple and lilac prints, but now I am pondering other colour combos....if you have any ideas, please do share!

I do love the process of making medallions, and am so glad I started this one. It will be my 3rd medallion quilt, I've done a Made to Measure (Sarah Fielke's beautiful pattern), and I did a baby medallion a few years ago as part of the Modern Quilters Ireland medallion-along. Serendiptiously, Modern Quilters Ireland are running a Round Robin Bee, and encouraging members to sew along on medallion quilts if we are not participating in the Bee (which I am not this year), so I am going to sew along with them for part of the Bee at least.

3 comments:

  1. what a beautiful start! I never thought to EPP the center. I foundation paper pieced mine & was really pleased with the result. It's a fun quilt! I know yours will be beautiful whatever colors you choose!

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  2. oranges maybe for the next round? I am trying to use darker prints more lately - I love the way Sarah Fielke used them in the Made to Measure medallion too.

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  3. Love the border print! Maybe bring the aqua out of the centre in your next round :)

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