Monday, August 18, 2008

Medallions Galore!

I love medallion quilts -- the quilts that have multiple borders surrounding a central block. Today, The Quilt Show (Ricky Tims' and Alex Anderson's online quilt community - http://www.thequiltshow.com/) aired and a long-secret announcement was made: Alex and Ricky have asked me to design the next block-of-the-month for The Quilt Show. Their 2008 online block-of-the-month, "Bouquets for a New Day" was designed by me and is being shared in monthly installments, with the final one to be posted online in December. The "Bouquets" quilt has a dozen appliqued blocks in it. For 2009, I was asked to design a pieced block-of-the-month; I just finished making it this week (except for the binding!). It is a medallion quilt, with a feathered star in the middle, surrounded by borders and blocks; the monthly patterns have a ton of tips in them, along with many photos to show how to make the quilt. While everyone who is reading this now knows the secret about who is doing next year's block-of-the-month design, I will still wait for Ricky and Alex to debut a picture of the quilt. So... what the quilt looks like still remains a secret!

In the meantime, I have been working on another medallion quilt called "The Washington Medallion Quilt" that my distributor, Quakertown Quilts (http://www.quakertownquilts.com/), will begin offering as a block-of-the-month in September. This quilt is unique in that I made this quilt as a "learn to quilt" block-of-the-month. Each month, there are lessons on precision piecing, accurate measuring and cutting, different techniques for making units, etc. An adventurous beginner should be able to make this quilt.

So where is the photo of this quilt? Well... I confess that I haven't taken a picture of it yet! I have a couple of "teaser" photos for you to see -- a close-up of the center star, and a photo of the first four months of stitching. You'll see the remaining 8 months of additions when I post again, soon!



Until then,
happy quilting!

Sue

(c)2008 Susan H. Garman

3 comments:

  1. OK Sue, now I know I'm going to do the BOM next year with you on TQS! I'm moving along and caught up with the current one and will be delighted to have you share your precision piecing with us! Woo Hoo!
    Quilter Lynn in Sugar Land, TX
    http://quilterlynn.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Sue,
    Your quilt is marvelous. I am doing the block of the month, and I do have one comment on the instructions for the feathered star. You tried very hard to show us how to lay out the block. The pictures were very hard to see, I had trouble figuring out the light blue points. I could not see the orientation of the center with the three points on it. I would like to suggest for your next pattern, may be a line drawing or a colored photo of just the lay out picture. In the black and white photo there is not enough contrast with your design board to see the light colored points. I have enlarged the photos to 200% and it helps some but not enough.
    You don’t need to publish this comment on your blog, it was the only way I found to send you a comment. Like I said your quilt is marvelous. Thanks. Mary
    mebowden@cox.net

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Sue,
    Your quilt is marvelous. I am doing the block of the month, and I do have one comment on the instructions for the feathered star. You tried very hard to show us how to lay out the block. The pictures were very hard to see, I had trouble figuring out the light blue points. I could not see the orientation of the center with the three points on it. I would like to suggest for your next pattern, may be a line drawing or a colored photo of just the lay out picture. In the black and white photo there is not enough contrast with your design board to see the light colored points. I have enlarged the photos to 200% and it helps some but not enough.
    You don’t need to publish this comment on your blog, it was the only way I found to send you a comment. Like I said your quilt is marvelous. Thanks. Mary
    mebowden@cox.net

    ReplyDelete