Today I want to show 2 small lap size medallion quilts which I designed.

I designed my medallion quilt "Windmills and Wild Geese" using the Mac version of EQ 7 (Electric Quilt 7). This past summer I participated in the Jump Start quilt along on EQ7's blog. My 4th block in the Quilt Along won a prize---a free book from EQ. I chose Quilt Design-Design Tricks from EQ Experts.

I still consider myself a novice user of EQ7. I've learned a lot about it since the beginning of the year but still have so much more to learn. Reading Quilt Design I found discovered that EQ7 not only has a block library, but also a layout library. The layout library provides a collection of whole quilt templates which can be used as the bones of a quilt design. You can create a unique quilt by adding quilt blocks of your own design, blocks from the EQ library, or by adding or subtracting lines to make the template unique.

EQ7 is protected by copyright so I can't reproduce a picture of the layout design from their quilt library. But the EQ paperwork states that what you design in EQ 7, as long as there are no specific copyrights noted on the blocks used, is copyright free. So here is my design early on. You can see that I was still auditioning blocks in the design at this point. Also there aren't any blocks yet surrounding the central medallion Dutchman's Puzzle block.

Below is the design after adding some additional lines which made it possible to add 2 block sets around the central medallion. I also added another set of cross blocks.

If you look up at the finished design, you'll see that I've changed some colors to make the design more interesting. Below is the finished quilt which I have posted previously.

I gather from what I've read on-line and heard from designers, complex Medallion quilts are more typically designed by hand on graph paper.

But sometimes they are designed by improv. That's how I created the quilt below. I already had a stack of half square triangles, half cream and half designed fabric from the Moda line "In From the Cold." So I knew I was going to incorporate those in my design.

I first created the Medallion center--4 diamonds comprised of 32 half square triangles. Then I added a 2 1/2 inch strip around it, followed by a wider green strip. I had intended to have the dark green strip abut the next strip of half square triangle diamonds. I thought I had my quilt math right but I missed by 1/2 inch. So I added a strip of light green which actually makes the center of the quilt pop. A design error with a happy outcome!

After the next set of diamonds I added a light green strip top and bottom to change the final quilt from a square to a rectangle. Finally I added a wide strip of red fabric with white snowflakes which was in my stash.

No matter whether you a design medallion in a computer program, on graph paper or by improvisational piecing on your design wall, they are fun to make and the result is a really interesting quilt. I hope you give it a try sometime!