Quilter's Academy Vol. 5-Masters Year

When you see a well-designed medallion quilt, it is awe-inspiring. When the center “medallion” and all the borders work well with each other, the end result is a true attention grabber. However, if the elements of the quilt design are not well thought out, it might grab your attention, but not for the enjoyment of viewing it. The problem areas are distracting. A border that is not the correct scale for the position it is in, or poorly fitted, can ruin the entire project. A fabric that is too bold for its position in a border, or a poorly planned corner treatment, can also disarm the viewer. Elements within the quilt that draw attention to themselves tend to take away the enjoyment of unity that is the goal of a well-executed medallion quilt.

A medallion quilt in its most basic definition consists of an interesting center area surrounded by a series of various borders. What you choose to be the center of the quilt should be something interesting enough to hold its own with the many borders that will surround it. For all the work that will go into the making of the quilt, you want the final project to be stunning.

The center is traditionally a wholecloth panel, a pieced block, or an appliquéd block. Broderie Perse (a technique where cutout shapes are appliquéd to the background) was often used to combine different elements from different printed fabrics to create an interesting center. What style your quilt will take on depends on what the center consists of and what kind of borders you choose to add. Planning a medallion gets easier as you do it. Choosing the center generally leads the way for where the rest of the quilt will go. Because it is the focal point, it sets the stage for what follows.

When thinking about the style of quilt you want to work on, you might want to analyze the look of medallions that appeal to you and the elements those quilts include, and make note if they have these elements:

Once you have thought about what you want the quilt to look like, you will have a good idea of what kind of fabrics will help you achieve your goal. If you are at a loss as to where to start, do some research and study the many photos of medallions from museum collections. These will help in getting a mental image as to how busy you may want to make your quilt, color combination ideas, border ideas, and so on. You might also be inspired by the vast number of border ideas in Class 590. This is not a quilt to rush. These tend to talk to you as you design or construct them, so be open to changing your direction if things aren’t turning out as you planned. Your quilt and you are entering into a working relationship.

If you take the time to do research of past medallion styles, you will find a great deal of variety. As we discussed in Class 510, the styles of medallions have evolved over time because of the fabrics available as well as the places they were made. Up until the 1980s, medallion quilts were mainly based on the traditional English style. In 1982, Jinny Beyer released her book The Art and Technique of Creating Medallion Quilts. This book sent the quilt world into a period of revived interest in medallion-style quilts. The difference this time around was that the quilts took on a very coordinated look through the use of fabrics that Jinny Beyer designed specifically for the purpose of making quilts with many borders that all coordinated. The use of elaborately pieced blocks for the center medallion, in many different shapes, became the norm, and the use of panels and appliqué fell by the way side. New “rules” were attached to the making of medallion quilts during this revival, with the quilts keeping to this coordinated look. An article on medallion quilts in Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine, June 1982, stated the following:

“Borders should repeat some element or idea of the central panel, thereby enhancing it. The borders and panel can be related by theme (such as patriotic motifs), by one or more colors in common, or by shapes that are repeated in both.” *

* “Medallion Quilts, Part 1,” Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine, June 1982, page 7

If you compare the quilts of the nineteenth century with the quilts of the 1980s, you will see a vast difference in style. Whereas the nineteenth-century quilts were made using whatever was available and obviously working with limited amounts of each fabric, the quilts of the 1980s were based on abundant fabric and fabrics that were designed for the purpose of coordinating all the elements of the centers and borders of these quilts. You also see a difference in the piecing quality. Many of the older medallions had borders that weren’t designed to fit perfectly. A lot of their charm is that the borders just ended where they may. Today’s quilters have an aversion to this haphazard style of piecing, preferring that everything fit exactly. This makes drafting and a working knowledge of geometry and math very helpful in the creation of medallion quilts.

Whichever style you lean toward, there are still the basics of design and skill involved.

Your quilt can be as modern as you can possibly make it, or a true reproduction of a quilt made by Martha Washington. So let’s look at styles in more depth.

When you see various medallion quilts, you might think that some of them contradict our definition above. Often you will see a quilt with a very large center panel and just one elaborate border.

Many Amish quilts can be included in the “center panel” thought process. Whether it is a center of pieced blocks or a center diamond setting, the emphasis on the borders and the elaborate quilting in the outer borders fit the medallion format too well to label the quilt anything else.

Comparing the many different quilts that were made in different eras, we want to show that there is a great deal of flexibility and freedom when designing a medallion. Let’s look at some of the considerations that might affect your design decisions.

The most practical place to start the designing or planning of your medallion quilt is in the center. The center panel will be the focus of the quilt. It establishes the theme and the color scheme; it introduces forms or ideas that might be repeated in the borders; it sets the style for the quilt—whether elegant or whimsical, formal or informal, traditional or contemporary. Your center panel can be made up of any of the following:

Panels were printed in England and used by British quiltmakers as early as 1810, but American quiltmakers did not use them until about 1830. For American quiltmakers, the panels served as a ready source of designs to cut out for Broderie Perse (or chintz appliqué). The British quiltmakers kept the panels intact and usually placed them square in the center of a quilt top, creating the traditional frame format of British quilts. American quilters preferred by far the center medallion format using a large panel in the center surrounded by smaller side panels.*

* Waldvogel, Merikay, “Gallery: Printed Panels for Chintz Quilts: Their Origin and Use,” Quilt Index, quiltindex.org/galleryFullRecord.php?kid=5B-B8-1, September 2013

Perhaps you have a design for fabulous quilting that never made it to quilt size. Try using it as a center panel to build a quilt around.

Appliqué could be the focus of a medallion quilt, continuing the center design into the border, and don’t forget about embroidery. Whether you freehand thread paint like Harriet did to create Indian Chief (below) or create a masterpiece from your embroidery machine, what better place to show it off than in the center of a quilt.

Regardless of the method, keep in mind that the center design should be strong enough to merit the border treatment. Strong colors, impressive patterns, or elaborate detail will give your center panel the weight needed to carry the quilt design.

As you can see by comparing the previous photographs, there is no set formula for planning proper proportions for medallion centers and borders. George Washington at Valley Forge has relatively little space devoted to borders. Each border is about one-third the width of the center. The single border is the perfect treatment here because it provides a suitable elaborate frame for the center, without overpowering it. This quilt definitely harks back to the original palampores.

Other ideas to make your design more interesting are to use a variety of border widths, to change the color intensity from one border to the next, and to mix techniques. Appliqué, patchwork, and fancy quilting are commonly combined in medallion quilts. When the colors used in the center are also used in the borders, continuity is maintained. The Virginia Framed Medallion is a perfect example of this.

Repeating shapes or design elements from the center into one or more borders can also create continuity. Symmetry is another way to plan a successful design. Symmetry permits corners to flow and turn.

Do you have constraints of size, shape, and details that might affect your design?

There may come a time when you already have some blocks or a particular fabric that you know would look great in a medallion quilt, but know also that it is not right for the center of the quilt. So where do you start? This is the case with Colorado Memories.

The pieced blocks in the large border are the blocks that were provided to us from each of the stores in the 2010 Denver metro area Shop Hop. Not wanting to make a standard block quilt, Carrie turned to Jinny Beyer’s medallion book and started thumbing through it. A quilt named Shenandoah by Lena Behme was the inspiration for the design of the Shop Hop quilt.

Having an even number of blocks made it a challenge to come up with a medallion setting until Carrie saw the inspiration quilt. Setting the blocks side by side in the corner made it possible to successfully use all twelve blocks and create a very interesting quilt. Because the blocks and the toile fabric were the focus, this quilt was literally designed from the block border in, making it necessary for the pieced center design to fit the space made available by the borders. This is just as much of a challenge as, if not more than, creating your quilt from the center out, but can lead to some great innovation and ingenious ideas to use up space. We will cover this quilt and the thought process more in Class 560.

Wall quilts can cover the gamut in sizes—from a small quilt for a small entryway of your home to one for the atrium of a large office building. Generally, we think of wall quilts as something small for our homes. If you are thinking of making a small medallion quilt, keep in mind that the center panel needs to be small enough to allow room for enough borders to be aesthetically appealing to complete the quilt. Unlike a bed quilt, a wall quilt does not necessarily need to fit a predetermined size. Its size is somewhat flexible, which makes the planning easier.

A wall quilt’s shape is also flexible. You can make the quilt square, rectangular, round, or even octagonal. The center panel can be the shape of the quilt with even borders on all sides, or you can start with one shape and end up with another by adding a unique arrangement of borders.

Unlike a wall quilt, the complete surface of a bed quilt is not seen at the same time. Instead, distinct design areas are separated by the shape of the bed: the drop at the foot and the sides of the bed, the top mattress surface, as well as the pillow area. Many antique quilts are made of symmetrical borders around the center regardless of the size and dimensions of the bed. You might find that you prefer to design your quilt to fit specific spaces. If you are concerned that the quilt be pleasing to see at any angle, you might want to work with shapes, colors, or themes that are in common, helping make the quilt work as a total unit. A medallion quilt for a bed should be planned carefully if it is to have graceful, coherent borders and still fit the bed as intended. We will discuss later working out the design on graph paper to get a feel for how well the elements work together.

Traditional medallion quilts generally have random borders of various sizes added to the center panel or block. Many of the quilts look as if the borders were well thought out and planned; others are a variety of leftover scraps and colors that have no relationship to one another. Medallion quilts made in the 1980s and 1990s appear more planned and fabricated. Fabrics are used repeatedly, elements of the center block are repeated in the borders, and so on. Jinny Beyer’s medallion quilts are examples of this. The possibilities are endless when it comes to the design of the borders for the quilt. By studying the many quilts of each era, you have endless ideas to consider in this phase of the quilt.

One of the easiest ways to make a decorative border fit the preceding border or center panel is to use appliqué. Either the border or the center panel (or both) can be done in appliqué. If the center is pieced and the border is appliquéd, you simply make the border strips whatever length is required to fit the pieced panel. Choose the border width to suit your appliqué motif. Since the background size for a given appliqué design is so flexible, it is easy to make an appliqué border fit any dimension required. You can even adjust the number of leaves in a traditional motif or alter the position of a flower to fit the background area perfectly. The appliqué can be fluid and free flowing, or designed specifically to fit the space.

If the center panel is appliquéd and the first border is pieced, make the background of the center a little larger than needed, piece the inner borders, and trim the center to fit the borders. You can also plan all this on graph paper first and make the center fit the borders.

Another easy way to make borders fit is to make the borders from blocks related in size to the blocks in the center panel. Even if the center panel is rectangular, the border will fit if you use this technique.

If the border is made from blocks set straight and the center panel is made from blocks set diagonally, the border block dimensions should be related to the diagonal measurement of the center block. Another way to design border blocks that have related dimensions is to use part of the center block as the border block. Using elements or partial blocks is a way to create cohesion of all the elements throughout the entire quilt. This process not only makes a naturally fitting border, but it also saves measuring and figuring.

You can also design pieced borders by regrouping shapes introduced in the center panel. Borders designed from shapes in the center panel look natural, but they may require some careful planning.

When planning pieced borders, it is often necessary to add a plain border between the outer pieced border and the center pieced or appliquéd portion of the quilt. This also works between two pieced borders when the math does not work out evenly. You can make any two parts fit each other by adding a strip of just the right width between them. To determine the strip width needed, you can piece the inner border and then piece the outer border, which is longer. Measure the lengths of the two top borders and subtract to find the difference in lengths. Divide the difference by 2. This tells you the width the plain border needs to be on each side of the quilt. Measure the inner and outer side borders, and divide the difference by 2 to find the width of the plain top and bottom borders.

Example: If the outer top border measures 50˝ and the inner border measures 42˝, the difference is 8˝. Dividing 8˝ by 2, you get a width of 4˝ needed for the plain side borders. The outer and inner pieced and appliquéd side borders measure 67˝ and 59˝, respectively. The difference is 8˝, so the plain borders at top and bottom would be 4˝ wide. It is important here to note, and we will talk about it later in this chapter as well as in the quilt chapters, that on rectangular quilts these filler borders may not always measure the same on the top and bottom as they do on the sides in order to make your chosen block size work. This is okay and a practice regularly seen in all medallions.

As you can see, careful planning and measuring are necessary to get these quilts to fit together properly. Besides planning borders, you can work with either square or rectangular quilts. Obviously, square quilts have an advantage over rectangular ones.

Symmetry is a key element to successful border designs that incorporate natural corners. When pieced or appliquéd borders end at the same point in the design on each side of the quilt, it is easy to work out a successful corner treatment. Because of this, it is easier to design a square medallion quilt than a rectangular one. For a square quilt, you can plan the border and corner for just one side and simply repeat them on the other three sides. By centering the border on each side, and by reversing any directional patterns at the border centers, you can be assured that the borders will be symmetrical and the corners will match.

A square quilt can simplify border planning. The quilt Geese in Flight (below) is a good example. The center block is square. On either side of the center block are dogtooth triangles. These repeating triangles are made a particular size, determined by dividing the size of the center block by the desired size of the triangles. If the desired size does not come out even, change the size of the triangles until they fit as desired. Because the center block is square, all the borders are the same.

As borders are added, the calculations are similar. Once you have designed the pieced border, the addition of plain strips between the center block and the pieced border helps with the fitting.

Square quilts make great wall hangings, and they fit queen- and king-size beds well. It is also easy to come up with a square center panel or block, matching corners and borders that are even all around the quilt.

What if you have a need for a rectangular quilt? How do you plan borders to fit a rectangular quilt? If you are making the quilt to fit a particular bed, you probably want the borders to drop at the sides and bottom of the bed to match. It is generally easiest to turn the center block or panel into a rectangle, but there are other solutions:

Set a square block on point and add large corner triangles that can be trimmed to a rectangle.

Once the center is turned into a rectangle, the subsequent pieced borders can be even all around, but they will have to fit two different measurements for length and width. Since the best way to round a corner gracefully is to have borders ending symmetrically on either side of the corner, you should plan your pieced border motifs to end at the same point in the design in lengthwise and crosswise borders. You can achieve this by adjusting the width of plain strips between pieced borders, or you can adjust the size of the border patches slightly for a perfect fit. A better solution is to make the border from units that repeat at a certain distance relative to the previous border pattern. The illustration (below right) shows the outer pieced border made from units that repeat in a space equal to the diagonal measurement of the blocks in the previous border. The points line up naturally, and the borders end symmetrically for matching corners.

A solution found in many antique quilts is to place spacers in various positions to make up for size deviations in the border. This problem occurred in the construction of The Virginia Framed Medallion. Spacers were needed at the ends of the Ohio Star borders to keep the math ruler-friendly for the star blocks.

There are a number of ways to approach designing a medallion quilt on graph paper. Perhaps the easiest way is to start by drawing a single block. This is the case with the incorporated-border medallion quilt Peppermint Delight. This quilt idea all started with a quilt Carrie caught a glimpse of in one of Harriet’s many books, but could never find again. So working from memory and out of Quilter’s Academy Vol. 2 and Vol. 3, she worked with incorporated-border blocks and just repeated them to create “borders” within the quilt. In some regards, this is the easiest medallion quilt to make. You are still making an all-block quilt with a diagonal setting. Pieced border blocks of different designs but of the same size are used rather than trying to make different borders fit as you grow your quilt.

This repeated-block type of medallion quilt can also be seen in Harriet’s Softly Spoken medallion, but with a special center and some plain borders added to show off beautiful quilting.

These types of quilts may start from being inspired by a fabric or fabric line that you want to showcase as a cohesive group, not having one fabric be the star of the show in the center and the others be supporting players. This is also a great type of medallion to make in two colors or in shades and hues of a single color. Once you have your blocks drawn out, you may want to play with coloration with your colored pencils. Make photocopies of your original line drawing, fill in the colors differently, and see what happens.

The majority of medallion quilts you might want to design will probably be more traditional, having a center panel and many different borders surrounding it.

It is here that we cannot stress enough the need to have a lot of inspiration photos to help you out, as well as Class 590 of this book. As you look through our library of borders in Class 590, you may come across one or several that you like the looks of and would like to make. You may see a photo of a quilt on the Internet that feels good overall. Study the quilt and determine what borders are used to create the quilt and if all of them appeal to you, or just a few. Once you have some source material it is time to go shopping, either in your stash at home or in your local quilt shop. See if you can find a fabric that would work for your center panel, or as mentioned earlier, make or use something you already have appliquéd or embroidered. If that center panel is already a given size, you know where you are going to start on your graph paper. Begin by drawing that size in the exact center of your paper. The next question, which may seem like getting the cart before the horse, is to ask yourself, what size do you want this quilt to finish? Do you want it for a wall, a throw on the sofa, a lap quilt for a loved one, or a bed quilt? Draw that square or rectangle on the graph paper so you know how much space you need to fill.

After that, it is filling in the blanks. Depending on how busy or subdued your center is, you need to decide if you want to start with a plain border or a pieced one. Now you are off and running. If you choose to start with a plain border, what size does it need to be? You really don’t know until you have chosen the next border you want, probably a pieced border. So choose the pieced border you want, and draft it to fit the size and shape of your center.

Center panel drawn and a pieced border starting to be drawn at a certain distance from center panel

tip

Keep in mind you may end up working in ⅛˝ units a lot to make these borders fit. So long as it is a number that you can find on your ruler you can likely make your blocks fit that size. It is also helpful to note that prime numbers (numbers only divisible by themselves and 1) sometimes occur in your quilt as you are drafting it. These measurements are something that you can avoid having in your quilt by simply manipulating a plain border. Here is a list of prime numbers up to 101:3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, 101

As was discussed earlier, you may find yourself designing from the outside in. Let’s say you find a border in the library of borders in Class 590 that you think would look great for the final border of the bed quilt you want to design. So draw that border the size that will fit your estimated quilt size and work in, maybe placing a plain border as the next border in, and so on. If you know the size and shape of your center and the size and shape you want your finished quilt, it then just becomes a matter of filling space in as simple or complicated a way as you wish or as your skills will allow.

Center panel drawn and a pieced border starting to be drawn around the outside edge

You will start to find that the plain borders are your friends and can help make your chosen pieced borders work out simply by manipulating their width. Earlier we talked about these borders being a different size. The side borders may need to be narrower and the top and bottom wider in order to keep your math friendly for your next pieced border. It should be noted here, too, that when you are actually piecing these quilts it is always a good idea to cut these borders at least ½˝ wider than you think they should be just in case your quilt is smaller or larger or your next border is smaller or larger than planned. You can use the width of the plain border to keep you on track with your plan.

As we mentioned earlier, especially when you are working with a rectangular quilt, you may find that in order to make things work you will need to make your blocks a slightly different size or your plain borders a little different size to make everything fit. Cornerstones that can be repeated as a design element can come in handy to help you make those transitions easier.

Drawing of a border with two different-sized blocks with a repeating rectangular cornerstone to make everything fit

We really do wish there was a magic formula we could give you or a wand we could wave that would make this all work and be clear, but unfortunately it all comes with trial and error and in the doing of it. There are so many designs out there and so many different styles that there is no one way to teach designing and drafting. You may decide that designing your own is just too much work. Harriet is challenged by figuring out the sizes and dimensions of what she sees when working with old quilts and inspiring photos of old quilts. Carrie instinctively heads for graph paper and colored pencils, and the ideas just start to flow. Her own innate need to be original and creative takes over. Both approaches bring you back to the fact that medallion quilts take a lot of calculator work and planning. The reason we saved these quilts for your master’s study is that it takes a full toolbox of skills to do the piecing. If you have these skills, you can put all your energy into design and drafting.

It also needs to be discussed here that your quilt may take on a life of its own. You may have everything drawn out perfectly on paper, colored in how you think it will look nicest, but as you start creating borders your quilt starts talking to you, and when you put the next border up, the quilt may say, “That doesn’t look so good on me.” Listen to that—don’t just plow ahead just because you had a plan on paper. Sit down with your inspiration photo or border library again and reevaluate.

This happened with Carrie’s Fancy Tail Feathers. When she got to the final outer border, the half-square triangles she had planned and the color layout she wanted were just too heavy and stark for the outer border she was using. By playing with the elements she had, she turned the half-square triangles into quarter-square triangles, made the plain border right next to the outer border a little different size, and now is much happier with the outcome of the quilt. This is the quilt talking back to you.

You can design your quilt solely by the seat of your pants too! Pick a center, and then pick a border. You may need to draft out each border to be sure the blocks will fit the size of the quilt, but it will save you from tons of drafting of the blocks over and over. Then add a plain border and then another pieced border—let your quilt just talk to you. These quilts are labors of love and may take weeks or months to create. Maybe you only add a single border every other week. If in the end you have a masterpiece that you love, what does it matter how long it took to create! Have fun with this. Don’t let the thoughts of the math and drafting bog you down; this really isn’t an intimidating process, especially if you have worked with us through the first four volumes of Quilter’s Academy.

note

It is here we want to address something important. If you do choose to reproduce a quilt you find on the Internet and you plan to hang that quilt in a show or for any reason ever publish your quilt on the Internet or in a book, we ask that you make sure you give full credit to the person whose quilt it was that inspired you. Anything older than 84 years no longer has a copyright, but if a person or a museum owns the quilt, you need to give credit to that person or entity of ownership. Being inspired by someone’s work is actually the highest form of praise for that person. By acknowledging them, your work will shine because you are giving credit where credit is due. This is important to your integrity as a quilter as well as the integrity of the original work and its maker.