That Medallion Quilt: Design as I Go

I finally decided to get back to that Medallion Quilt I started a year ago. I was at an impasse as to how to proceed... procrastination! In my mind I knew I wanted to take it with me to the recent sewing retreat I attended, along with The Beast...The Singer 99K (heavens, it must weigh at least 35 pounds). I figured the machine would help me get in the mood to work on the quilt. After researching more medallion quilt designs online I knew the best way to proceed was one border at a time, sort of a design-as-you-go method. And I wondered why do I always pick out difficult projects to do? Why couldn't I just choose one of those quilts that supplies all the fabric, gives detailed instructions and you just follow along.....

 

I first decided I wanted to make a row/border of half triangle squares...I thought they would bring in all of the fabrics and not use too much since I really didn't know how much I needed in the first place to make this queen size quilt. I carefully cut strips, then squares, then cut those into triangles and sewed them together. Lots of them.... Then I stitched those into strips....but Oops, I didn't like the way they looked against the bordered medallion.

Back to square one. So I started taking fabrics and laying them up against the medallion, and eureka! A 4" wide border of the dark red floral really looked good. And it was simple...yeah!

Then on to another border after getting home. After carefully measuring (the medallion is not perfectly square...another challenge) I realized I could make four-block squares starting with 2 1/4" strips of fabric. After stitching two different strips together I cut them into 2-block strips, and then sewed those together to make the blocks. Then the blocks together into a long strip for each side....you quilters know the drill. I stitched this fairly randomly. Here's a corner of the quilt top.

The Medallion Quit so far: I like it.

I'm going to hang this over the banister so I can see it regularly and ponder the next border. I have some ideas about what should be next: a solid border of cream muslin? What do you think?