Medallion Quilt Finish!

This project that I've had in my head and now finally finished was about a five year journey. Do you have projects like that? It's such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment when it's completed!

This quilt was a unique project for me since it started with the Colonial Williamsburg Restoration Inc. (copyright 1959) linen toile as the centerpiece. I used the selvages of said linen piece in the borders around it to document the importance of the center.

It was not a perfect square, but close to it so succeeding borders had to be slightly adjusted to make it around the medallion. Designing everything as I went was a quilting journey for me, searching "medallion quilts" and reading books to figure out all of the borders. But I enjoy a challenge.

The last border to be quilted was another "Borders Made Easy" design that I also echoed (just like the first one) to fill it out a little bit using my quarter inch foot.

It was a bold choice to machine quilt this Kona cotton cream border in the King Tut Chalice (#970) thread with variegated colors of wine to camel. Sort of sticks out, you know...highlighted the experience of the quilter. Well, it's not perfect but I'm satisfied because I don't think any quilt is "perfect" when handmade.

The bias binding was already made: made it when I made the binding for the Cream and Sugar Quilt I finished last year. So after finishing quilting and basting around the circumference of the quilt I trimmed off the excess making sure the corners were square. Stitching the raw edges together with a 3/8 seam made easy work, covering the machine basting. I mitered the corners using instructions from "Floral Bouquet Quilts from In The Beginning" by Sharon Evans Yenter. This photo below shows some stitching on the left, folding the bias at 45% then fold down, and restarting machine stitching on the next side. Pretty ingenious as long as you keep to the 3/8" seam.

After pressing the binding away from the quilt I hand stitched one side or more of the binding to the quilt each day and completed the stitching in three days.

The red binding really sets off the quilt top and compliments the quilt back floral fabric. I'm really happy with this project because I learned a lot and it's one more project completed!

Except I have enough fabric left to make matching pillow shams.....oops, another project is born!