I wasn’t planning on doing another medallion quilt in my doll quilt series. There are so many others on my list (two-color, whole cloth, sampler, or even Hawaiian), but then I found the photo below in the book Great Little Quilts by Eleanor Levie. The original is about 45″ square, but mine is going to be just 18″, which required a few hours of drafting with some 1/10″ grid paper. My design is not perfect, but the original is also a little funky, and I think that’s just fine.
My templates are all traced and cut, but it’s going to take some time to gather the antique fabrics for this little quilt, because I need some larger pieces of red and brown for a couple of the borders where the prints are the same. If I can’t find exactly what I need, I’ll use reproduction fabric for those sections.
As I was drawing this pattern, a couple of things came to mind about the advantages of using template patterns. First, you can design a quilt with any weird size piece you want (like 7/10th”), and it’s very easy to reduce or enlarge a pattern by simply scanning and re-sizing the template pieces. There are instructions in the book to make this quilt in a 48″ size, which is similar to the original. If the author had provided templates, it would have been a lot easier for me to shrink this pattern.
I have always loved this quilt in her book. I am looking forward to watching your progress on this one….I am impressed your going to make it this small 🙂
Kathie
I can’t imagine how tiny your seam allowances must be on a doll quilt that size. My eyes just aren’t that good anymore.
Thank you for sharing your process. It is fun to “watch” an artist at work.
I can’t imagine drafting the pattern myself, on something with so many pieces. When I was in high school, I remember making my own 1 inch gridded paper on the back of Christmas wrapping paper, to reproduce an embroidery pattern. It took a long time, but I was pleased with the results!! I still have it somewhere. 😉
I love this quilt and I love Eleanor Levie too! Let me know if you need any reproduction browns, I have a lot from my Civil War style quilts and will happily send you some!
Hugs,
Mickie
This will be a wonderful quilt! That is quite a reduction in size, down from 45″ to 18″! I really look forward to watching you progress on this beautiful little quilt!!
Martha, That is a beautiful quilt and I’m sure your reproduction will be fantastic!!
I can see why this quilt is so appealing to you, Martha. I think it looks like the “warmest” quilt I’ve ever seen: the colors are perfect.
Where will you find old fabric?
By the way, your aprons for July are beautiful. You do such lovely work. (I didn’t want to leave a comment on that post and create a numbering problem when you chose the recipient.)
Wow! Your doll quilt is beautiful. I have enjoyed reading your blog since I found it last month. Thank you for sharing.