Medallion Magic QAL Part 6

It's time for another installment of the Medallion Magic QAL 😊 This month we're adding the last borders to our quilt tops, meaning you'll soon have finished quilt tops!!

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
May 15th - Borders 3 and 4
June 15th - Borders 5, 6 and 7 - we're here 😊
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:

Remember last month I was late for my own QAL? Well, not this month! I have my Island Batik Medallion Magic finished and I love, love, love it!

These box blocks come together quickly, especially since we cut all the pieces back in February. I know I've said it before, but aren't these Paisley Park fabrics from Island Batik gorgeous? The rich purple is still my favourite.

I'm playing with the possibility of making a whole quilt (or two) with these blocks. They're so much fun to make and they're great for showing off pretty fabric when they're paired with a neutral background.

I really like how the borders look together in this picture 😊 It has been a lot of fun remaking one of my favourite quilts.

Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to quilt this one. Whenever I think about it, all I can picture is how I quilted the first Medallion Magic, and I'd like this one to be different. I'm hoping new ideas will come to me once I get it basted. That will be one of my tasks once summer vacation starts at the end of the month.

If you haven't started your Medallion Magic quilt yet, there's still time to finish a quilt top or even the whole quilt before the finish party opens on August 15th. There are some wonderful prizes to be won from some great sponsors, too. You can see all of the available prizes here. Click here to get your pattern. I hope you'll join us!

There's no link up this month. The finish link up will start on August 15th and will stay open until August 31st. Quilt tops and finished quilts will be eligible for the prizes at that time 😊 Thanks for quilting along with me!

A Devotion Break

I've been thinking for a couple of months now that I'd like to take a break from writing weekly devotions, mostly because it's feeling harder and harder to find something to write each week. I've decided to take the summer off and I plan to return with new weekly devotions again in September.

I've hesitated to take a break from the devotions in the past because I worry that, once I stop writing them weekly, I'll find it impossible to get back into the habit. I'm hoping that by setting an end to my devotion writing break, I'll be able to jump right back in once the summer is over.

I'll still be here sharing my quilting (and garment sewing - there's new fabric on its way for a couple of dresses I'm really excited about making), so it's not a complete blogging break. There are lots of great quilts in the works that I can't wait to share 😊

In the meantime, I plan to read my Bible more often without worrying about how I could turn what I'm reading into a possible devotion. I hope that will allow me to return with plenty of new thoughts and insights in the fall.

A Small, Practical Finish

Welcome to TGIFF! There's no better way to end the week than by celebrating our finishes 😊

I have a small, practical finish to share this week. Back in December I made two sets of Christmas fabric napkins, one for a gift and one for us. Right up until about the middle of May we were still using those Christmas napkins, reindeer and all, lol. It was definitely time to make some non-holiday ones. I've had them made and in use for a couple of weeks, but I'm only just getting around to blogging about them.

When I was trying to decide what size to cut the Christmas napkins, I took one of my precut 10" squares and pretended to wipe my hands to see if that would be big enough. It was, so that was the size I cut out of my yardage. This time around I made it even easier on myself and just used precut 10" squares.

These are all Island Batik fabrics. The brights on the sides were in the stack of Paisley Dot brights that I used for my March challenge. I took all of the blues out of that stack because I was using other blue fabrics and I didn't want the pinwheels to blend in. I've had those squares set aside for napkins ever since 😏 The other squares are from the Victoria and Albert line.

Most tutorials for making fabric napkins tell you to fold over the edges and press them before stitching to give you a nicely finished hem. I think that looks beautiful. I also think that if I had to fold over and press all four edges of 25 napkins (that's 100 edges!), then they'd never get made. People always say I must have "some patience" to make the quilts I do, but that patience obviously has a limit.

Instead, I used the overedge foot on my machine, which makes it so easy to get a nice zig zag finish right at the edge of the fabric. It's not as fancy looking as the folded hem would be, but it has held up well on the first set of napkins and it's so much faster. I used Aurifil 2311 for all of the stitching. It doesn't match any of the colours, but it's a perfect creamy colour and it works with everything. And again, using just one thread meant I could stitch one napkin after the other without stopping, which meant it was faster.

I made 15 napkins in December which was almost enough for our family of five. This time I made 25, mostly because the napkins tend to get stuck in the laundry room for an extended period of time and that would sometimes leave us with no napkins in the kitchen. It's not that they're not washed and dried, but that the mountain of clean laundy doesn't get folded and put away nearly as quickly as it should. With ten more napkins I'm hoping that means there are always enough in the kitchen ready for use because, let's be honest, I'm not likely to suddenly get better at folding the laundry promptly. Anyone else out there with a mental block against folding the laundry or is it just me?

I love using fabric napkins. They're so much prettier than the disposable paper ones I had been buying for years, plus we're now not buying and throwing out all of those napkins. I'm trying to take as many baby steps towards reducing our waste as I can and this one is so easy.

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