Gwennie-Inspired Liberated Medallion Reveal!

 Today is the day!  The stars have aligned properly and I can finally show you my completed quilt.  Yay!

This was the beginning block - a liberated basket

This wall quilt was the result of my participating in the Gwennie-Inspired Medallion Quilt Along with Lori at Humble Quilts blog.  Since I love all things Gwen Marston, I thought it would be fun to play along.

We were supposed to begin our quilts with a liberated basket.  I had the basket already made - I had made it in a Liberated Basket class with Gwen I took a couple of years ago.  I thought that was perfect.  The fabric that the basket is made from is some vintage fabric from the 1960's or 70's.

The second round was "childhood memories", the third round was log cabins, the fourth round was stars and the final round was "something fishy".

Ta da!
26" wide by 30" high

For the 2nd round, I thought of that childhood game Pick Up Sticks and also stilts.  I always played Pick Up Sticks at my aunt's home, as it was one of the few kids' games she had. (My cousins were grown and gone.)  And my sister and I spent a lot of hours trying to walk on our stilts.  We never did get very good on them!  I'm not sure I ever got to the end of our short walk from the front porch that ended abuptly in the middle of the lawn.  *grin*

Third round was easy - I love liberated log cabins!  Once I had decided on keeping the black polka dot consistently in the center of the log cabins, they just flowed.

For the stars border, I really wanted to continue the black dots fabric from the log cabins.  So I thought that just a limited number of stars in that border would be good.  It was looking very static, so I got the idea to have those stars "dance".   I love the way it turned out!

By this point, the quilt was looking finished to me, so I had a hard time figuring out how to do the "fishy" part of the 5th round.  I considered adding a border of flying geese pretending they were fish.  But in the end I decided that the fishes had to live on the back of this quilt. 

I had to include more dots too!  Of course!  It makes me smile that the dots remind me of the bubbles coming from those colorful fishies' mouths.

I decided to do one of my favorite quilting designs for liberated quilts.  Just not-too-straight straight lines.  I love that it doesn't disrupt the looks of the piecing and just seems to almost disappear.

highlighted to show the quilting

The center of the quilt is quilted this way.  I decided that in the black border, I would outline the stars then do straight lines parallel with the edges.

I'm not sure how well you'll be able to see the quilting here, because I used black thread on the black fabric.

I love my little Liberated Basket quilt!  And, when I showed it to Gwen, I got her "Seal of Approval"!  That really made me happy! 

I need to say a big Thank You to Lori for getting this QAL off and running, and to Katy, Cathy, Cynthia, and Wendy for the additional prompts.  It was so much fun to participate in this QAL and to make this quilt!

You can see the grand reveal of all the participants' quilts on Lori's blog here.  Lots of fun, wonderful quilts to see!  It has been so fun to see how everyone else interpreted the prompts.  

I'm going to be sending this quilt to Lori for a display she is doing at Quiltworks (in Bend, Oregon) for their 'First Friday' and monthly exhibit for May 2017.  If you live nearby, be sure and go visit!  You won't be disappointed!

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