Marcelle Medallion: a finish!

It is finally finished! My marcelle medallion quilt is completely done and I am so, so in love. I even got it done in time for Bloggers Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side like I had hoped :) And I never thought I'd say this, but I get to enter it in the hand quilting category!

I am pretty sure this is one of my favorite quilts I've made ever. It is from the book Liberty Love, and it is just a fantastic medallion quilt. I had been planning to make a medallion quilt for ages, I just hadn't found the right one and when I first saw this one, I knew it would be it. I couldn't even stop myself from starting and before I knew it I had a completed quilt top. I started with the center and had no real idea where I was going with it, which was a fun way to work for once. I knew I wanted it to be calmer than the original, but in general my only rule really was no black. I had so much fun picking out my rainbow of fabric and just playing and making it pretty! So many favorites that I am not sure I would have ever used all together, but this style quilt was absolutely perfect. I even used some amazing voile for the back and it is just the softest quilt ever. The only changes I made to the pattern were to leave off the final border and when I did the plus blocks, I kept each background the same fabric instead of making it totally scrappy. And while I may not have made this quilts out of actual scraps, I didn't buy any new fabric for it, which felt really good. I figure any quilt where I can use my whiles and mermaids is a good one.

It took a bit longer than normal to finish this up since I decided that I wanted to hand quilt it. I have never hand quilted anything before, not even a small something, so it seemed a little crazy, but once I got hand quilted concentric circles into my head, I couldn't get it out and it had to be done. I used a size 12 pearl cotton since that's what I found and I love that it is a little chunky, but not too much. I actually enjoyed the experience quite a lot. I used random plates/pots/trays/bowls to trace the circles in the beginning until I ran out of things big enough and then I used a ruler and marked the circles however many inches away. I used my hera marker to mark and it worked pretty well although it was hard to see unless I had really good light. Still, I really loved not having to worry about any markings disappearing. I only used a quilting hoop for the center until I outgrew it and then just propped it up with my knees and went to town. I bound it in leftover scraps of binding I had and I am really happy with how that worked out.

I am really super proud of this one! I can't believe I hand quilted an entire quilt (!!!) and I just hope it can withstand being used. This was originally going to be for my baby-on-the-way, but I don't know if I can part with it, so I think it might be mine. It just has so many of my absolute favorite fabrics in it and I just want to look at it all the time. I have seriously considered hanging it on the wall, but I'm not sure I have space for that. It finishes right around 55" square. And I just have to include this picture of my little helper, because man, she's pretty cute :) She likes to help and take pictures of the quilt too on her play camera.

And now that this is finished, I can work on quilting the quilt that actually is for the baby! And about a million other things....but that's besides the point. Happy quilt festival everyone! Who else has entered a quilt?