This quilt has a long history.
It started with my picking up the light and medium green fabrics in a charity quilt starter packet at my guild in Indiana (and I left Indiana in 2011). It continued when I did my first round robin and had never done pieced borders before, so I practiced each border before making it on someone else’s quilt. This was a year or more before I left Indiana. Not big enough, it needed more borders. That was accomplished at a quilt retreat in 2013 (here), and then it rested till now.
55 x 65
What prompted the finish is the guild’s charity project, quilts for hospice patients, this quarter.The subdued tones seemed right for that. And I had time.
I ended up quilting in a meander except for the circle in the center. That I just outlined.
In addition to practicing borders, I had been practicing inserting circles–yes, we were doing that then. This quilt is not a typical medallion quilt, since the center isn’t really a medallion, a special block. The 9-patch seemed the fastest way to get a center the size of the round robin piece awaiting my border.
In some ways the large squares (6 1/2 inches) are too large for the rest of the piecing. Seeking balance, I made the final border the same width. Luckily there was enough of the medium green print to make four cornerstones. I think the “imbalance” ends up working because the light green borders in a gestalt view read as one wide light border. (Perhaps I delude myself that it works–feel free to say so.)
Something else different from my usual is the color of the binding. Usually I bind darker than the final border. In fact I went to the store with “the right” brown or dark green in mind, though I was also considering pink. No pinks were dusty enough. Moving on to the brown section, I paused at the gold. Actually in the store it looked closer to the peach of the raspberry and peach narrow borders, and it seemed good to repeat that peach. And gold appeared in three prints.
Actually that was just an excuse to show that mitered corner. While I don’t love the gold binding next to the medium green, I do like it next to the dark green and in the overall look at the whole quilt. I think the striped print with its green in between two light pink stripes set up to have dark with light on each side. So I think the lighter binding works here, though it may not work everywhere.
One more UFO loosed on the world.
Linking with TGIFF and Finished or Not.
And Finish it up Friday (when link available)
knitNkwilt 
Very good. And yes, you’re right that the balance works just fine. To my eye, it’s because your value balance throughout is pleasing. And using the light green in the outside corners, bracketing the dark green final border, is the same as in the center block 9-patch. The repeat works well, too. Thanks for finishing for hospice, and for sharing with us.
Your mitered borders are really nice! I haven’t tried those for a long time.
Good Morning!
What a fun read and a great finish. I think the dark green borders and cornerstones are just a perfect finish for this quilt. As a custom framer in my earlier life, I often see projects that scale and balance is not considered. Matching the size of the nine-patch blocks looks just perfect! And the gold binding – I didn’t notice it at all until your close up photo. It does its job of pulling out that color in the fabric, and it was a color that was overlooked because of the strong greens and pinks. The rule for selecting mats is to chose the third color you see, unless of course you want the stronger colors to really shout. Yay for an UFO finish. ~smile~ Roseanne
First, I think that gold border is perfect. It brings out the golden tones in the middle of the quilt. Look at that first picture. I love this quilt. I think it’s beautiful.
Looks great! I think you handled all the design challenges well, including the binding. 🙂
I don’t know how I missed seeing this earlier, but now I have I just want to say how much I like this quilt. It’s quietly elegant, and reminds me of a Roman mosaic pavement. I’m glad you chose the gold binding, I’d have found a darker one a bit less interesting and I really like the way it picks up the colours in the prints. It’s taken its time, but it was worth the wait!
What a wonderful quilt for a wonderful cause! You seem to have a huge quilting heart! 🙂
It’s so great to finish up longterm UFOs, isn’t it? That was a good call on making the final border/stones size match the inner squares. It does look balanced. Nice mitering, too on that pretty border print. And I do like that gold binding. Everything pulled together nicely. Someone is going to find sweet comfort in this.
Congrats! on completing this quilt for your guild’s charity program.
I do think all of the parts of this quilt hang together very well. I like knowing how you made the decisions. And I’m glad you paused at the gold when you were looking for binding. It’s really striking with the whole quilt because it emphasizes the gold bits in the rest of the fabric. You didn’t release a UFO on the world. It’s a finish, it’s lovely and it’s a blessing.
Wow! That turned out great! Medallions are a “challenge” for me because of the need for the borders to fit, so I’m especially impressed!