Pear blossoms

Thomas Knauer sent me a little bit of his upcoming fabric line for Andover, Pear Tree, to see what I would make with it.

I've been working with a bunch of medallion designs, and I thought all the curvy egg shapes in Pear Tree would really shine with some curved piecing.

This is also my first attempt at quilt as you go (QAYG), where you quilt your blocks and then join them later. Granted I haven't joined any blocks yet, but still I'm wondering why I haven't done this before. You have so much more control working with small pieces. For the echo quilting in the medallion, I turned the block round and round. It was such a breeze compared to the circle quilting on the Ripple quilt.

I'm making four medallions, each set it Kona Bone, with window pane sashing to match the prints. I'm leaning toward a dusty pink for the sashing, but I might go blue or green.

The second medallion is pieced (I actually did the pink one first), and ready for the QAYG treatment. There are some piecing photos after the fold.

I pieced the medallions in six petals, then attached them around the center hexagon clockwise, one at a time.

There is a y-seam at the last intersection, but otherwise it's not that complicated, once you get the hang of the curves.

Here's the back of the pink medallion,with all the seams pressed toward the inside of the curves. I found the curves to be gradual enough that I didn't have to clip the seams to get them to press flat.