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Rainbow Medallion Mini Quilt

October 28, 2019 by Terri Ann

Oh what a winding journey this quilt has made. This little mini quilt has a long story behind it.

In the center of this quilt is a star – I sketched this star in 2016, back in the early days of Mini Barn Quilts. There was an idea I had which would have added an entire line of other products to that brand but it never came to full fruition. Eventually I came back to this sketch and then, armed with a Cricut machine, I cut card stock into shapes to English Paper Piece (EPP) a beautiful star.

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A little deserved *me* time prepping some hand sewing for English paper piecing a #minimini no deadline, just a little slow stitching. Perfect for the airport and flight time next week heading to #glampstitchalot ✈️ #fridaynightsewing #englishpaperpiecing #tulapinktruecolors

A post shared by Terri Swallow (@terriann) on May 27, 2016 at 8:50pm PDT

I kept the parts and pieces it in a lovely little tin I’d received from Yvonne over at Quilting Jet girl years ago after I helped her with some WordPress issues. I did a lot of that hand stitching at the picnic table during lunch at work when I worked in Sutton. That job was not good for my mental health at the time. Brining handiwork to do at lunch combined with eating better and spending intentional time away from my desk at lunch helped get through the hump the helped me remember that if a job isn’t a good fit for me – it’s okay to move on.

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A little EPP on a plane. On my way to #glampstitchalot ✈️ and so happy for quiet sewing time to test out this mini design. It's coming together nicely!! #quiltersofinstagram #englishpaperpiecing #tulafabric #quilt #handstitching

A post shared by Terri Swallow (@terriann) on Jun 2, 2016 at 6:23am PDT

I really enjoyed that hand stitching but when it came time to finish it I realized I hadn’t done a vert good job at designing the EPP pattern and the borders were too narrow to “make it work” so it got put back in the little gold tin until I could figure out what to do with it.

Fast forward a few years to 2019, now we live in Vermont and I’ve been cleaning and I come across this tin. I looked at my shambled work and decided that it had served it’s purpose but no longer sparked joy. I thanked it and threw it in the trash. I was a little high on Marie Kondo at the time.

Fast forward one more day and I pulled it out of the trash. Cause, gosh darn it, despite it’s imperfections it deserved a second chance. So I pulled all the paper out of the pieces, pressed the block into submissions to try and make things flat and then sewed a couple hap-hazard background pieces to stabilize it for it’s next border. That’s when I knew it was going to be the medallion in a mini quilt.

This was around the time that Kitty at Night Quilter came out with her Sew Tiny Sampler pattern and it all clicked. Once I gathered up the rest of the scraps from the charm pack I initially pulled the medallion fabric from I got started whipping up the most charming little quilt blocks!

After the first 4 mini blocks I finally made it to one of the meetings of the Vermont MQG and brought my littles to show and tell to introduce myself to the group (June 2019)

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Thinking about checking out a #vtmqg meeting? Well these three ladies were guests at our last meeting and even brought a show n tell item! We’d love to have you come see what we are all about! Next meeting is Sunday June 9th at Vermont Commons School. . #vtmqg #modernquilting #vermont #guests #showntell

A post shared by Vermont Modern Quilt Guild (@vtmqg) on May 29, 2019 at 3:57am PDT

After lots of math, graph paper, sketching, more math and some cussing I decided that in order to surround the medallion with a border of tiny quilt blocks I was going to need to add a thin border or leave more white/negative space around the star than I’d planned.

Processed With Darkroom

Part of that planning lead me to designing and sewing 4 additional tiny paper pieced blocks. Rather than have 4 duplicate blocks I wanted to keep with the sampler style in this border. I think they compliment Kitty’s blocks nicely and I’ve made a PDF of them available to download. I am the only person who has tested these blocks so use at your own peril.

Download “Tiny Extra Blocks” tiny-extra-blocks.pdf – Downloaded 23 times –

Once the vast white space was patched (see earlier reference to hap-hazard crafting) and the border of tiny blocks was applied I had to get back to the math drawing board to add the perfect thin border between the blocks and the lovely rainbow square border. Gosh it’s nice when the math works out and your little 3/4″ squares connect near-perfectly!

As I was planning the border of rainbow squares I knew I wanted more white space outside that border before finishing up with some snazzy binding hijinks. I didn’t want another traditional style border, I wanted something with a lot of white space, to help balance the white space around the star, and something slightly less balanced. I’d already decided to quilt the mini using a big spiral so to add some new shapes I decided some equilateral triangles would be perfect.

You don’t see a ton of equilateral triangles in quilting, typically things are half square triangles or flying geese but I adore how the two up and three down set looked in the sketches so I whipped up another paper piecing pattern to put together those pieces. I’ve also made those blocks available for download. Again they are not tested by anyone other than myself so use at your own peril.

Download “Rainbow Mini Quilt Triangles Paper Piece” rainbowmini-triangles.pdf – Downloaded 18 times –

I loved how the white space with the arrows created movement and breathing room. As someone who only straight line quilts I always feel like my well of options is limited but with the new-found movement in the quilt I knew a big spiral was a new technique I needed to conquer with this project.

Because the triangles were only on the sides I wanted to add a peek-a-boo of more colors at the top. I remembered a post about a flanged binding that I’d seen a while back. I did a flange with my quillow, that didn’t come out quite how I had envisioned but I though this binding with faux piping tutorial from The Quilting Company might be the ticket!

Sew Easy: Binding with Faux Piping

I was delighted with the outcome!

It took a while for all of this to come together but at the October 2019 guild meeting I got to follow up my very first show and tell with a finished mini. When I got home I hung it in the barn for a couple photos and a quick quilt show with the chickens. The had very positive opinions on the piece.

Posted In: Finished Quilts, Quilting Tags: medallion, rainbow

Comments

  1. Kitty says

    October 28, 2019 at 9:09 am

    This is so beautiful! I’m very happy that your center medallion climbed its way back out of the trash! It looks fabulous surrounded with the itty bitties, and your finished mini quilt checks all the boxes. So pretty!! <3

Terri Ann of Childlike Fascination

I’m Terri Ann, a 30-something New England born and raised, cowboy boot wearing, website making, WordPress loving, picture taking contemporary quilter with obsessive crafting disorder. I make websites by day and quilts, crafty items, patterns & blogs by night!

I’m also the founder of QuiltAlong.net and Mini Barn Quilts.

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Instagram post 2188886301952784566_212136 Netflix and chill? Naw...this girl’s into Hulu and hand binding 🧵 📺 🐶 🎄 🎁 .
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#quiltsofinstagram
Instagram post 2185067404216706382_212136 The clouds had a lovely way of greeting us as we first stepped out this morning for animal business. #morningsnow #vermontlife #winter
Instagram post 2184350224336470014_212136 #watsonbra update. Before sewing the hook and eye I did a fitting. 🙈 I gotta loose 2-2 1/2” on the band but the cups fit pretty good. One fits better than the other but...that’s life. I marked where I’d take it in but I may leave it in this state until my next kit comes in so I can make a second with adjustments before making any changes to this one. Should help for comparison/self education purposes. .
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I think it’s plenty fixable to make this one wearable. Now we wait in the orders to ship.
Instagram post 2184305144510700681_212136 Oh hello there snow. ❄️ ❄️ that means it’s indoor time hot cocoa and sewing. “If you choose not to find joy in the snow you will have less joy in your life but the same amount of snow.” Today, I choose joy 🥰
Instagram post 2183176329713541696_212136 😍😍 in progress. #watsonbra
So far so good. It’s fun how fast it’s coming together, especially compared to a quilt 😂 this is a skill builder I’ve been thinking about for a while. (Caution...rambling ahead)

Practical. Yes. Relatively cheap compared to buying quality fabric for something larger like a dress/blouse where you’d need yards of fabric. I’ve done minimal work with elastic before and there’s definitely some stitches on my machine I need to become more familiar with. I feel like my (single and triple) zig-zags aren’t very even but got better when I lowered the pressure foot tension. BUT now I have scraps to mess around with after I see how it even fits🤞Please be a #wearablemuslin 
PS Feeling mildly exposed 🙈 airing my unfinished laundry 👙 out on the [on]line but it’s so cute and I’m so proud that it’s not feelin like a flop like other garment attempts have. And that is definitely reason to celebrate! 🎉 
Pattern by @clothhabit fabric and notions were a kit I ordered from @costurasecretshop
Instagram post 2181032279589890244_212136 A little Tuesday night pattern cutting. A while ago I picked up the #watsonbra pattern and a scuba knit bra kit from an Etsy shop. Finally after much unnecessary gemming and hawing I’m cutting right in. First bra attempt. We’ll see how this goes 🙈 🧵 👙 #bramaking #makersgonnamake
Instagram post 2173453131174628280_212136 Used up leftovers from the front and binding to make blocks to piece for the back of a quilt I’ve been working on recently. I love the wonky log cabin but I think it’s destined for a different project ❤️ the front is a scrappy Irish chain like the checkerboard block.
Instagram post 2161807175366527943_212136 This poor pooch. No one ever moves the pillows out of the way for her after breakfast nap. #dramadog
Instagram post 2160714007715810671_212136 Organizing by hue. Both satisfying and functional.
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