The Medallion Quilt
The Medallion Quilt measures approximately 51 inches square. There are 14 different fabrics in the quilt, and the basic colors are blues and blue-greens, with white prints and a pink calico. Although it sounds like a lot of fabrics, and it might look complicated to make, it really was quite simple. The process begins with sewing strips together, and then cutting them into triangles.
In this example, I used 5 strips, alternating different shades of turquoise and white. Each strip was cut 1 1/2 inches wide, so that I would have finished strips that were 1 inch wide.You can create whatever design you would like with the new "fabric" you are sewing together. In the example shown here, I decided to use 3 different blue fabric, with the lightest on one side, the medium in the center and the dark on the other side, and have the white (actually off-white) between the blue strips. The Medallion Quilt uses only 2 different colors in each triangle, and the strips were cut 2 inches wide, so they would be 1 1/2 inches wide finished in the quilt.
Once the strips were sewn together, it was time to cut the triangles from the strips. It may seem pretty obvious, but the size of your triangles will be determined by the width of the fabric you have created by sewing the fabric strips together.For example, by sewing 5 strips each 1 inch finished, your triangle will be 5 inches from the base to the tip, and more than 10 inches from tip to tip on the longest side. The triangles in the Medallion Quilt are 3 1/2 inches from tip to base and 6 inches from tip to tip across the base. This information helps as you plan your quilt, if you want your blocks to be a particular size. These are isosceles triangles, and there is a 45 degree angle at the point of the triangle. That means that it takes 4 triangles to make a square.
Continue to cut triangles from the strips. You will see that there are two different patterns of triangles.
In the case of the blue and white examples, the light blue is at the tip of some of the triangles, while the dark blue is at the tip of other triangles. In the Medallion Quilt, the design is simply a "dark" fabric and white fabric, with each triangle cut in half horizontally through the center. Once you have all of the triangles cut, it is time to place them in a design for your quilt. The design can be anything from very simple, as in the blue and white example, to a more complex design, such as the one in the Medallion Quilt. After you have determined your design, begin sewing the triangles together to make the quilt top. The easiest way is to sew 4 triangles together to make individual blocks. Once the blocks are sewn, then sew the columns and rows together to complete the top. Add borders, and you are done. The one thing that is a little different about this quilt is that the first border is actually made up of two green strips with triangles sewn in the middle of the border so that the medallion would extend into the border. That procedure will be described on another page. Now you have the basic construction method and design of this quilt. Take a look at your machine quilting design ideas, and see what might be a fabulous quilting design to highlight some feature of this quilt.
Good Luck and Happy Quilting!
Penny Halgren
TheQuiltingCoach
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