So, here's the dealio- I am not Kristi. I'm supposed to put something lovely like "Hi, I'm Kristi's guest blogger today," but I'm kinda liking the power trip I'm having sneaking in on someone else's blog. Makes me feel like I'm a Ninja blogger. Only with permission. And I'm not destroying anything.
My name is Angela from
The Green Apricot. (Hey, if you're gonna guest blog, you may as well do a little self-promotion, right?!?) Kristi just so happens to be in a place where Internet access seems to be a little dicey today, but before you feel too sorry for her, let me explain. She is at
Camp Stitchalot. Yeah, that's right, the one hosted by none other than
Pink Castle Fabrics and
Fresh Modern Quilts. The one where
Tula Pink,
Katy Jones,
John Adams and
Deborah Moebes are camp counselors. And she left me at home. Sheesh.
So, being the awesome, amazing and outstanding friend that I am, I'm hijacking Schnitzel & Boo to tell you about the...
Kristi and I have been working on this project together, which makes this a little easier to do. In fact, those are my hands in that picture. Lol. (Sorry Kristi, I couldn't help myself. Power and all that.) So, we got started by reading the pattern.
Stop laughing. We really did read the pattern. I love what Crystal did with this because I come from a "traditional" quilting background, and I needed a little guidance on how to "let go". In the 21 years I have been quilting, it has been all about perfection and rules. In my own rebellious way, I have largely ignored most of that, but still, I needed a little help with this one. Kristi's part of this Quilt Along is the very center, aptly named "New York beauty contest". It uses a freestyle foundation piecing process, which really is awesome sauce. However, I have to admit that my very first thought was "What the heck?!? Where's the foundation pattern? How on earth are we going to draw arcs with any kind of success?" The traditional quilter in me was having a heart attack.
Thankfully, Kristi is a smart cookie, and knew just what to do. I should note here that we opted to use paper rather than the quilter's muslin mentioned in the pattern, mostly out of convenience. We had paper, so we used it! Anyway, she showed me how to use an 18" grid ruler to draw the arcs to make a freestyle New York Beauty pattern. The ruler has tiny holes in the center of it, as well as the expected measurement markings. As seen in the picture above, begin by stabilizing the ruler by securely placing a pin in one of the holes placed over the corner of the paper. Then, decide how big of an arc you would like, and place the pencil tip in the hole in the ruler that matches the size of arc you desire.
Then, while keeping the pin in place, simply drag the pencil from one edge to the next, creating an arc. Voila, magic! Well, not exactly, but kinda. Because this particular ruler doesn't have holes running it's full length, we could only draw the bottom arc this way. In order to draw the top of the New York Beauty, we simply used the markings on the ruler to measure about plus or minus 2" from our original arc and made a series of "dashes" that we connected into an arc.
This is the only picture we remembered to take of this, but I believe you can understand what we were doing. For those perfectionists out there, I get it. Just relax. I promise it will be okay. Just go with it. After you have drawn both arcs on each of 4 sheets of foundation, it's time to add in the points, or spikes. This is the beauty of this New York Beauty. You can put as many or as few spikes as you would like, but five is a good number to work around. We used a straight edge, mostly because we had one, and because it just made it easier.
Here's what one of our foundations looked like:
From here, we simply followed the instructions included in the Modern Medallion pattern for foundation piecing the spikes. (I like to say spikes rather than points because this pattern always makes me think of the spikes on Lady Liberty's crown.) This really is the fun part- playing with laying out fabrics with the perfect contrast. This is where the personality of this quilt begins.
Now, here's another part where my "traditional quilter" brain started to panic. Once you have foundation pieced the spikes, it's time to add the background fabric. Don't freak out, but this is where the curved piecing part comes into play. The great thing about curved piecing is that if you stack and cut your fabrics correctly, the piecing actually comes together really easily. In this case, we found that for us, stacking your background fabric, right side DOWN, and your foundation piece, fabric side DOWN on top of it, it made cutting a little easier. ****Note- this is the opposite of what the pattern says- remember, there is always more than one way to skin a cat, although I don't know why you'd want to skin a cat in the first place...
By doing this, we were able to use the drawn lines of the arcs as a
guide to cut through all layers of the fabric 1/4" out from the arcs. The result is two pieces that look like this-
When you stack and cut in this manner, you end up with a yin to
your yang, and it sews together perfectly. Repeat this process for each side of the arc, creating a background for your crown of spikes.
See? Two beautiful New York Beauties! Just two more to go!
Almost there!
How stinking fabulous is that?!? I personally really loved this process and making the center of the Modern Medallion. I cannot wait to see how these are all going to turn out, and I've enjoyed seeing some of the other Modern Medallions already in progress online. You can see too by checking out the hashtag #modernmedallion on Instagram.
So how's your Medallion coming along? Share your progress on Instagram, and
click here to link your blog to Two Little Aussie Birds so that we can all enjoy each other's work!
Would you like to jump in, but don't have a pattern yet? That's easily rectified-
click here for a link to purchase your own copy and join in the fun!
