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Medallion Quilts

© Jeanne Walsh

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The work of English quiltmakers followed them to America in what are called "medallion quilts." These are quilts with a central design surrounded by borders. I quilted several of these for Delores Yoder (Royal Stars of the States) a few years ago, Carolina Lily, Flowering Trees, and Mariners Compass. I have never tried piecing anything so intricate as those patterns but I have made some "medallions" that just grew.

Usually a quilter is inspired maybe by another quilt or pattern, makes up the central motif, pieced, appliqued or perhaps a printed panel, and adds borders to compliment that motif. The "round robin" uses this idea with a central design and one border sent to a member of the round robin who adds another border, sends it on, and so on.

I joined a block of the month, a four month series, offered by our local fabric shop. The idea was to complete all four blocks, take them to the shop and at that point they gave you the matching backing. I fell in love with the gorgeous colors chosen for the blocks, gorgeous dark red, dark green, golds, tans, a purple, some prints, some mottled, all just beautiful. When I started to put them together for a wall hanging, I thought, "What a shame to show this as a seasonal hanging and hide it away on a shelf the rest of the year." What to do with these beautiful blocks???

In my stash were several yards of a mottled beige that I had picked up thinking to use it somewhere as backing or background. Would it work with these blocks? Perfect! Could I possible get a bedspread out of these four blocks?

I joined the blocks into a four patch, placed them on point and used my beige to add corners. Again going to my stash and to the scrap box, I found enough fabric to make 2 1/2 inch triangle squares for an inner border around the square.

For the top of the quilt, I pieced three 7 inch star blocks of scraps from the original blocks using more beige as background. The star section and the medallion square were joined with final addition all around of 9 inches of beige for the drop of the bedspread. Good thing that beige stash held out!

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