Medallion Magic QAL - Part 4

It's time for the next installment of the Medallion Magic QAL! I love seeing my quilt grow now that we've started sewing 😊 If you haven't started yet, there's still time to join in and I'd love to see your Medallion Magic quilt, too.

I'm aiming for this to be a slow, relaxed quilt along, with not so much to do each month that you can't keep up. We're all too busy to be stressing over keeping up with a QAL! Here's the schedule of events:

January 15th - Gather fabrics and pattern
February 15th - Cutting
March 15th - Center star
April 15th - Borders 1 and 2 - today!
May 15th - Borders 3 and 4
June 15th - Borders 5, 6 and 7
August 15th - Finish party link up opens

If you don't have your pattern yet, you can pick up your copy from my Etsy shop in either PDF or printed versions.

I know that adding two (or even three) borders in one month sounds like a lot, but one of my favourite things about this medallion quilt design is that 4 of the 7 borders are just plain fabric, which gives the pieced borders room to breathe. I've always found most medallion quilts are so busy it's hard to focus on anything and I intentionally designed Medallion Magic to allow the pieced borders to shine.

Here's my original Medallion Magic, made in Northcott fabrics:

And here is how my new Island Batik version looks with borders 1 and 2 added. I love how bright and airy it feels with the light background!

These strip blocks come together quickly thanks to the magic of strip piecing 😊 Isn't it great when we can use simple strategies to make blocks that look like they took a long time to make?

I love the springtime feel of these greens and purples, all from the Paisley Park line, especially now that we're in the mud stage of spring here in Newfoundland. My tulips have started coming up, though, so I'm looking forward to seeing colours that are more exciting than brown sometime in the future.

I've always loved pinwheel blocks and this double pinwheel is no exception. These corner blocks have quite a few small pieces, so an accurate ¼" seam allowance is really important.

Andrea, of 3rd Story Workshop, recently shared a great explanation of how to check and fix your seam allowance so check that out if you're not sure about yours. I may still be trying to zero in on the perfect ¼" with my new Janome 6700 (which I keep meaning to write a post about, but it hasn't happened yet). I naively assumed that using the ¼" foot that came with the machine would give me a perfect seam allowance, but it was off by quite a bit. We won't talk about how many things I sewed before I realized that...We also won't talk about what a beginner level mistake that was. I should definitely have known better.

That's it for this month. I'm looking forward to seeing your first couple of borders!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Judas

Devotion for the Week...

Over the past two weeks, we've looked at Pilate and the chief priests and their parts in the Easter story. Today I want to look at Judas' betrayal of Jesus.

"Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests and asked, “How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?” And they gave him thirty pieces of silver. From that time on, Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus" (Matthew 26:14-16).

The Bible doesn't tell us anything about why Judas betrayed Him, though people have speculated that Judas was looking for a king who would overthrow the Romans, who had conquered Israel. When it became apparent that Jesus wasn't going to do that, Judas betrayed him. Whatever his reason, I think it's interesting to note that it was Judas who approached the chief priests, not them coming to ask him to betray Jesus. Judas took the initiative to get rid of Jesus and even to make a profit from doing it.

When the time came, Judas brought "a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs...sent by the leading priests and elders of the people" (v. 47) to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane and "had given them a prearranged signal: 'You will know which one to arrest when I greet him with a kiss.' So Judas came straight to Jesus. 'Greetings, Rabbi!' he exclaimed and gave him the kiss" (vv.48,49).

The next morning, "When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. 'I have sinned,' he declared, 'for I have betrayed an innocent man.'...Then Judas threw the silver coins down in the Temple and went out and hanged himself" (Matthew 27:3-5).

What I can't help but wonder is what did he think was going to happen? He hanged himself upon realizing that Jesus was going to die, so obviously that wasn't his intention, but what did he intend? Was he aiming to have Jesus discredited, so people would stop following Him? Did he hope Jesus would be arrested and put in prison? Did he never really think about what would happen to Jesus, instead only focusing on what he stood to gain by turning Jesus in to the chief priests? We don't know what he expected to have happen, but when he realized that Jesus was going to die, he was so crushed by his guilt that he committed suicide.

I remember once hearing someone lament that because he committed suicide, Judas never got to experience Jesus' forgiveness. It was the first time I ever thought about how Jesus would have reacted to meeting Judas again after His resurrection, had Judas still been alive. Can you picture Judas, trying to make himself invisible, so Jesus wouldn't notice him? Or maybe falling on his knees, apologizing over and over for all the pain his actions caused, cringing from the anger he expected? Never in a million years would he have expected the love and forgiveness we know Jesus would have given him.

No matter how big our sins are, God's grace is always big enough to cover them. Even Judas' betrayal would have disappeared under the covering of His grace and love. That goes for all of our sins, too.

First Responder Quilts Delivered!

For anyone who doesn't know the story behind these quilts, they're the result of the generosity of hundreds of quilters who answered my call for blocks two years ago after a senior's home across the road from me burned down. All of the residents got out safely, but they lost everything, so I asked for help to make them quilts. Here's the original call for blocks, plus the quilts for the residents and the employees. And pictures of some of the residents with their quilts are here and here.

I am so excited to finally be able to say these quilts have all been delivered! On April 2 I took the first responder quilts to the fire hall to meet with the firefighters, paramedics and RCMP who could be there and give them their quilts. Here's the group shot with all three groups. I think I should have had a stool, lol! At 5'2" I've never thought of myself as tall, but I look ridiculously short in this picture 😏

One person didn't want his face shared publicly, which is why he's covered.

And here are the individual groups. First, the RCMP. One member has moved away since the fire, so his quilt will be mailed to him.

The paramedics. The two on the ends were working and arrived just in time to receive their quilts and be part of this picture, but they weren't in the big group picture above.

And here are the firefighters. Quite a few weren't able to make it that night, but I left their quilts with the fire chief and he'll give them out. Also, you might notice that two of the guys in the paramedics picture are also here in the firefighters picture. Our firefighters are all volunteers, with regular jobs as well and two of them serve the community as both firefighters and paramedics.

And now on to the quilts! There are 31, so be prepared for quilt overload, lol. Just a couple of notes first - I would have loved beautiful, outdoor pictures of these, but the weather and work schedules wouldn't cooperate, plus with 31 quilts it was pretty much just a matter of Zach and Michelle holding them up and me snapping the pictures quickly. And second, any quilts that look different or that are perfectly coordinated rather than scrappy were donated as either whole tops or even as finished quilts.

I'd love to know if you spot a block you made!

Two years ago, I wanted to make 21 quilts for the residents. Because of the incredible generosity and support of this amazing community, we made 21 for the residents, 10 for the employees, 31 for the first responders and we sent another 21 quilt tops to help make quilts for people affected by hurricane Harvey. That's a total of 83 quilts/quilt tops! I've said it before, but it bears repeating - quilters are wonderful people!

I still have some backing fabric and binding left over, plus a small bag of blocks. All of that will be passed on to another quilter here in town who does a lot of charity sewing, especially for our province's children's hospital. I feel like that's the best way to honour the intent with which it was given to me.

I can never thank you enough for jumping in with such enthusiasm and helping me to bless so many people in my community 😊

I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday, TGIFF, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop and Beauties Pageant