Elephant Walk

Week 1 - Quilt 1-


The first quilt I've chosen to document is Elephant Walk, not for any particular reason, I just need to start somewhere. We are going to be all over the place, old quilts, new quilts, bed or wall quilts, you get the picture......

Elephant Walk

This bed quilt is a medallion design which means you start with central block and keep building out, adding borders around and around.

Elephant Walk is the 3rd in a series of medallion quilts.

Swatch sample

I get bored when doing the same thing over and over again, so I really like to use lots of different fabrics in my quilts.  This works really well, as I've stopped buying large pieces of fabric and pretty much stick with FQs.  This way I never run out, I just substitute another fabric.


The key to using forty to fifty fabrics instead of 3 or 4 is all about values.  You can pick 5 or 10 fabrics that all "read" the same.  Line up all your choices, evenly spaced, stand back and squint.  If they all blend together, you can use any of them in place of just one fabric.  If any stand out, remove it.  In the swatch sample above, the 2 strips on the right hand side are from the border print fabric.

close up of centre

last 3 borders and binding

back

label

After designing and making my first medallion quilt , I decided to teach it as a class. My favourite way of teaching is to make a quilt along with my students and the reason why I'm now the proud owner of four of these quilts, three are finished but #2 is still in the UFO pile and needs to be quilted.

Every quilt uses the same pattern, except for the central 12” block, and border #7 made up of 6” blocks.  This change gives each quilt an original feel.

Elephant Walk was probably started in 2003 but wasn't quilted until 2009.

I like this quilt, it's a colourful happy quilt.

It's a nice day in Kenogami!

The thermometer says -5˚C (23˚F).

A light fluffy snow is falling, and that's nice after the 3 days of rain we got around New Year's making everything super icy and slippery.

Have a great day,

Terry

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Documentation:

Quilt Name: Elephant Walk

Description: Medallion Quilt – This quilt is an original design. 

Pattern:

Central Block is The Silk Road from The Block Book by Judy Martin.

6” Blocks are Gwen Marston's Liberated Stars.

The other borders are either plain or from traditional designs made up from squares, half-square triangles, flying geese and big & little chain of squares.

Size: 75” x 95”

Fabrics:   Border print was purchased on a trip to Arizona.  43 fabrics in 4 values – light, medium light, medium dark and dark were chosen in colours from the print.

Predominant colours:  Gold, green, orange and black with a small amount of turquoise and purple.

Construction Techniques: Twelve pieced and plain borders were added around a central square. All the plain borders are made from the border print,  except border #3 which is made up of 4 large triangles and skinny border #5

Back: Northcott 100% cotton - Dark brown & black with metallic gold swirls – Bonsai Geisha # 2089 by Ro Gregg

Batting: Hobbs 80/20

Edge finish: Double fold french binding – Black with white pin dots

Quilting: Long arm machine quilted – Pattern – Square spirals

Quilted by: Marnie Mascioli from Calico Cat Quilting

Sleeve: Yes

Label: Yes

Date completed: April, 2009

Inspiration: The inspiration for the colours and fabrics used came from the border print. Two borders depict elephants which inspired the Quilt Name.

Appraised: No

Quilt History: This quilt was displayed in the Kirkland Lake Mile of Gold Quilter's Guild 2009 Annual Quilt Show in May and the 2009 Temiskaming International Plowing Match Quilt Competition in September.

Maker: Terry Whyte