I did decide to go ahead with the embroidery in the corners of my center. I hemmed & hawed over it a while, knowing full well I’d do it even though that much embroidery was going to be a lot of work. I just think it needed something to fill the space. Most importantly though, it does not change the initial design elements, it’s just an addition…kind of like embellishments to the medallion.

And if you’re gonna do something, it might as well be fantastic, right!? I have two corners completed and working on my third.

To recap last months challenge, we needed to implement a snowball block with a red-violet color. I added the tiniest snowball blocks I could, which I think were 2.5″ finished on the corners with some of the Timeless Treasures bicycle fabric scraps I had left and added a crochet trim to make the separation from the center to the border. I felt like since the center was going to be so busy with the dresses and embroidery work, that the next border needed to calm it down, which is why I only added snowballs to the corners.

Can’t see the red-violet? Here’s an up-close. Remember…it can be a little or a lot of the color. I chose a little…

Perfect right!?

Now I’m working on February’s challenge, border #2.  The task drawn was ‘curves‘ and the color was ‘carnation pink’.

I think I can handle February’s challenge! Does anyone see where I’m going with this? You’ll have to check back for my progress on this border which I should have completed soon. My next meeting is this Sunday. I’d better get busy!!

*photo-Handiquilter

The other program we started in January is a Medallion Border challenge. We start with a center square of our choice and each month a new set of guidelines will be chosen for us to complete a border.

For example..this is my center square I showed in January. It’s a retro dress design from a Sizzix die that I traced to turn into a pattern I could hand appliqué. I wanted to work with lots of florals so I chose to focus on some of the LakeHouse and Flower Sugar fabrics I’d been hoarding.  I appliquéd them onto a white tone-on-tone dotty background. It took on a dresden like effect when I decided to lay them out in a circular pattern.

My favorite is the navy blue with the big cherries on it!

A recurring theme I’m planning on having is cherries, strawberries, dots, and florals. And of course I’m going to add lots of hand embroidery. To start, I embroidered a purse in the center of my medallion. Every great dress deserves a beautiful purse! This is an embroidery design by CrabApple Hill from her Sundress pattern. I’m going to be incorporating several of those designs into this challenge. Hopefully more along the center corners and into the borders as well.

Each month a design task and a new color is randomly chosen for us to incorporate into the next border. In January the task was a Snowball block and the color was red-violet. Here’s a few Google images so you can visualize my task this month…we can use as many or as few blocks in our row and as much or as little of the red-violet. We just need to to be able to identify it to the challenge coordinator.

For the February meeting I will need to come prepared to show my finished row attached to my medallion or risk being expelled from the program or worse…having some sort of fitting punishment. Oh my. That sounds worse doesn’t it? The unknown is ALWAYS worse!

So I’d better get moving if I want to make my deadline. I’ll be back soon to show you my progress!