cultivating a Medallion Flower
On Monday I got to hold baby Livia for the first time! Such sweetness. Her quilt is coming along. Would you like to see?
This was my fabric pull, if you remember. Livia’s mama chose the palette, and together we narrowed down the fabric choices. The soft pink fabrics are for the medallion center taken from my Nineteen Thirty quilt design and the aqua/white fabrics are for the patchwork squares surround.
Choosing fabrics for the center medallion flower was challenging. It’s a totally different look than my original Nineteen Thirty quilt. I was sure I wanted to feature the Rifle Paper floral, but choosing a star contrast fabric to pair with it was difficult. My first try was a soft cream solid, like the background of the floral print. That didn’t have enough value contrast with the surrounding soft pink flower petals, so I switched to the darker pink star contrast fabric instead.
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Selecting fabrics for the patchwork surround went much easier because that kind of random squares patchwork is so forgiving. Still, I did hesitate to cut that pretty modern flower print. I was worried it would draw more attention than I would like in the patchwork surround. To test things out, I first cut a small batch of fabrics and arranged the squares around my flower medallion on the design wall.
It was immediately clear that this is a less-is-more kind of quilt. No loud flowers in the patchwork surround, please. In fact, I decided to add more solids to calm things down.
I also revised the center flower. See how I’ve covered up some of the darker pink flower tips with the peach dotted fabric? That feels like an improvement. I still don’t know what I will use for the little circles around the flower. Maybe that dark pink print from the star contrast or maybe the star floral? I think that I will have to figure that out towards the end.
Today I have a few hours to bring this further. I hope it comes out well!
