The Heritage Medallion - The Blogger's Quilt Festival

 

Heritage Medallion

60" by 60"

1996

Machine pieced, Hand Applique,

 Paper pieced, Broderie Perse 

Hand Quilted by Me!

Categories:  Hand Quilted, Throw Quilt, Applique  

Nominated for Favorite Hand Quilted Quilt - Vote Here!

How does one learn the art of quilting??  I'm sure every quilter has their own approach but mine was a self taught journey - at least the first 10 years.  I would get my monthly Quilter's Newsletter  - pick a pattern that I thought would teach me something and set  out to make it.  

That's exactly what I did with The Heritage Medallion Quilt in 1996.  Its a serial pattern which means that once every two months an issue would come out and the next set of instructions were included.   So that year I learned a ton of techniques.  The center is Broderie Perse where I fancy cut out the flowers and needled turned appliqued them on.  Its also cross hatched hand quilted every 1/4" inch - you can see that my stitches were starting to get tiny and even.  The small 4" sampler blocks were super hard!  I had to paper piece them - which meant I had to draft my own paper piece patterns.  They're not perfect - but they're close!  

Finally, as with most quilters, I never met a pattern that I didn't want to change.    So one of last installments included pieced tree corners.  I thought  that carrying out the applique corners from the middle to the outer edges would be more pleasing.  That meant though that I had to learn how to pick out appropriate patterns and size them to the proper size.  The ones I chose were authentic depression era patterns that were given to me by daughter who was passing down her late mother's quilter's stash.  I love that stash and I was so glad to use it in one of my first projects.  I then needled turned hand appliqued them.

It took about a year to complete and it won 2nd best in show at our local fair.  I remember the little old lady who accepted it into the fair didn't believe that my 30 year old self (I looked younger) had made it.  She says, "Tell the truth - your mother made this right?!  You know you can't enter this under your name if she made it."  She was VERY serious.  I just smiled and said "Yes Mam I promise  - I made it all myself."

Motto of this quilt story - Try to pick projects that will challenge you  - teach you - expand your quilt knowledge.  I know that "Modern Quilts" where less is more and fancy fabrics carry  the quilt is all the rage - but I would put out there that there is still a lot of value in true traditional skills.  All the skills I learned on this quilt I still use to this day on my truly modern contemporary quilting.