Watch the Birdie: The Modern Medallion Workbook Bloghop

Welcome to the penultimate stop of The Modern Medallion Workbook blog tour.  This is a contributor book lead by Beth and Janice and as the title says it is very much a workbook with detailed instructions and technical diagrams  throughout.   All the contributors have been taking turns to reveal more about their quilts and design process and today it's me!

When I received the invitation to contribute to this book, it was not long after the start of Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine and Alexia Abegg's  Marcelle Medallion was heavily featured as an excerpt to promote her Liberty Love book.  It was such a popular quilt, especially on social media- I completed the centre during the Instagram quilt-along but never made it to the outer borders.  It kick started the return of the traditional Medallion quilt layout and gave it a modern twist and Alexia has another stunning design in this book.  My invite for the workbook came near the end of 2013 and I did hesitate- I wasn't sure I could come up with a suitable Medallion style design but as often happens for me, an idea popped into my head and I couldn't let go of it and my 'Watch the Birdie' quilt came quickly from there.

I am a big fan of vintage ceramics.  This china plate is by a German producer and although the colour is a bit dark for my taste I loved the simplicity of the pattern and I knew I wanted to incorporate the leaf and the circle into this quilt.  I am not a fast quilt maker and time was not on my side with this commission!  I used Sizzix drunkard path dies and trimmed the blocks down to make the leaf and bird shapes.  

With everything I make, I like a narrative to support the design.  With this quilt, the 'story' is bird migration.  The centre medallion represents summer with four simple Scandinavian bird motifs  surrounded by the first border of  summer flowers and leaves.  The strip border indicates the equinox, marking a moment of change.  The outer border shows the journey to autumn and winter seasons; the circles are the winter sun, the long triangles are the trees and the geese are the birds flying south!  I never said it was a complex story, just a notion of what is behind the design, something to hang the concept on.

The quilting is simple; a mix of echo quitling and some big stitch hand quilting to mark bird wings and a central flower.  The eyes are appliquéd felt circles.  I love the bright saturated colours, it makes for a happy modern baby quilt.  I generally find when I design something, I love it whilst I'm working on it but afterwards my attention has moved to other things.  However, with this quilt I am still really enamoured with it!  I am not quite sure where it is going to live but I like the coherence of the design and the relative simplicity. 

The border is a Liberty lifestyle print (now long out of print) that captured the colours perfectly.  I didn't have enough and I remember ordering it from Jessie at Sew and Quilt and she shipped it super fast!

If you want to read more about the other contributor quilts, the links are below. 

May 11th:  Janice and Beth at C&T/Stash
May 12th: Melissa Richie- weshallsew.blogspot.com
May 13th: Amy Sinibaldi- nanaCompany.typepad.com
May 14th: Christina Lane- sometimescrafter.com/blog
May 18th: Erica Jackman- kitchentablequilting.com
May 19th: Becca Bryan- www.bryanhousequilts.com
May 20th: Karen Anderson-Abraham- bloomingpoppies.net/
May 21st: Latifah Saafir- www.latifahsaafirstudios.com
May 22nd: Kerry Green- verykerryberry.blogspot.co.uk
May 25th: Beth- www.plumandjune.blogspot.com   and 
                    Janice- www.betteroffthread.com