Metro Medallion Quilt

This is Yvonne’s Metro Medallion quilt and it is a pattern by Sew Kind of Wonderful.    She requested custom quilting and it took me a bit of time to figure out a plan but once I had that in place it came together well.    I had a lot of inspiration for the designs from the Sew Kind of Wonderful blog and Jenny’s quilting of their cover quilt which you can see here.   Yvonne didn’t add the diamond pieces in the center of the white background so that gave me a space to play.  I added my favorite pedal feather motif and surrounded it with pebbles and then did a similar flowing feather motif Jenny used on hers.  It filled the space beautifully!  I then did the two curved lines in the grey fabric and the U-turn design on both sides of that to make the curved line pop! 

For the border I used a pumpkin seed design and added the U-turn quilting on both sides to make them pop as well. I originally started to quilt my favourite curved echo border design but stopped and changed it to this. I think it has a more modern feel that the quilt wants.

One thing I try very hard to do when I’m quilted a dense design is to make sure the quilting designs are even in size and spacing so it will lay flat in the end.   It really helped that Yvonne’s piecing was excellent so I wanted to make sure that the heavy quilting designs didn’t warp it.   I was very happy when I took it off the machine and laid it on the floor to see it perfectly flat!

I used quite a few rulers on this quilt so thought I would share those with you.    First is my most used ruler, the Little Girl ruler from Gadget Girls. I use this one for all my stitch in the ditch, just love it!  It is getting a bit dinged from a few close calls hitting the hopping foot but it has survived my abuse well.  This was the first ruler I bought and would recommend it to all beginner quilters.

The next ruler is a new purchase, it’s the QCR Sidekick made by Sew Kind of Wonderful and it has the same curve as their Quick Curve Ruler.   I used it to stitch in the ditch around the medallion designs and to add the curves in the grey fabric.  It worked very well and even though you have to switch between two rulers as you go around the design I didn’t mind that as having the right curve that matched the piecing made that worth while. I know I will get good use out of this one as I love making their patterns!

Then for the diagonal lines in the Medallions I used the Crossing Hatching Ruler from Topper Tools.  This ruler attaches to your leveller bar and they make a few styles for different machines.   This was the second ruler I bought during my first year of longarm quilting and it has paid for itself may times over!

Last but not least is my newest purchase, The Quilted Pineapples Curved Templates.  I used her 8” template to make the border design and I was very impressed with the quality and marks on this ruler.  Think this might be my new go to curved ruler as it fits nicely in my hand and easy to use.  I will have all the sizes soon so look forward to trying them all out!

So that was a lot of rulers for one quilt but it is nice to get the opportunity to use them.  This quilt took me 4 days to quilt and it is a lap size.  Quilting this intensely is great for the brain and the creative spirit but I think I’m ready for a panto next!   Wish I could have gotten outdoor pictures of this quilt but it has been snowing on and off for days now and haven’t seen the sunshine in awhile!

*Edited on Feb 11 to added a few snow pictures!