Tuesday 26 August 2014

Dory Would Tell Me to Just Keep Cutting

The Aviatrix Medallion is an incredibly gorgeous medallion quilt designed by Elizabeth Hartman. I knew I wanted to make it as soon as I saw her all solids version and I have never been interested in a medallion quilt before. I roped in my quilty friend C and we both had fun pulling from our stashes. But then the cutting. Oh, the cutting.

I felt like I had completed an Ironman when I got all the coloured solids cut:
This is the most gorgeous stack. Yummy.
And then I had a looooooooong pause. Partially due to life and partially because the cutting was KILLING ME. This quilt is not for the faint of heart. When C went on a quilting retreat and finished her centre medallion and four borders (!!!!) I was motivated by her pictures on Instagram to jump on cutting again.
First all the white.

288 Template 3 pieces. RiDONKulous.
And I actually got all the cutting finished! Though I did have this as my distraction when I couldn't cut anymore:
A butt load of 2 1/2" strips of Art Gallery's Squared Elements for the binding for my grey quilts.

That made this gigantic roll of binding. This is the greatest fabric for binding. It looks amazing.
Once it was all cut and I had an hour of sewing time without any kids or my husband to interrupt I jumped in. I swear I broke into a cold sweat when I began here:

The first real assembly page of a 17-page pattern.
And then I laid them out like this and started getting really excited:
I had to pause at this stage because the baby woke up from her nap. I carefully covered each diamond with a piece of paper so one of my cats wouldn't decide to take a nap on top and mess up the order!
And after a little trouble with the grey solid being added (the instructions are amazing so I really only used a seam ripper twice) I got THIS:
I can't stop looking at it.
I posted it on Instagram and even my non-quilty/sewing friends were impressed. Because OH MY HEAVENS THIS PATTERN IS AMAZING.

Now if only I could ignore the six (!) quilts I need to get done before Christmas and get the rest of this done!

Lynn

3 comments:

  1. Oh! What a wonderful colors! Great job!

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  2. Oooh... that is a lot of cutting. That pile of Kona happiness makes me drool just a little. I've admired this quilt since the QAL began. Kudos to you for having the guts to take it on... it scares me! :)

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  3. Awesome progress Lady! Too bad we have to go back to work!

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