there once was a castle, hidden by a hedge …

I hinted the other day that I may turn my humble stack of Civil War blocks into a medallion quilt - so, true to my written word, this morning I retrieved the little pile from the drawer, pulled out Judy (honestly, you couldn’t do any better!), chose my favourite pieces from the reproduction stash and began my medallion quilt - with the medallion of course.

For the centre, I chose a 16inch block - the bigger, the better - called the Castle Garden.  Now initially I picked this block because it would give me lots of Flying Geese to make and I wanted to try out the amazing no waste-technique from Patchpieces (found via Amy - she’s a regular treasure trove of quilting ideas!).

Humph! These look more like hearts to me - how on earth do they turn into geese and fly away! (strange light, I know)

Mmmm… I think I can see where we’re going!

Do you know, I have avoided chopping squares into triangles for the whole 14 years I have been doing patchwork - if it wasn’t a straight-forward half square triangle I downed the rotary cutter!  But, ta-da!  Scary no more!

Now, being a fanciful girl, as I worked on the block, I conjured up a complicated tale of why it was the PERFECT block for my medallion.

See, the block IS the castle, with lots of turrets and towers, surrounded by a thick green hedge of twisting, turning holly …

… and then expanding out from here are the beautiful garden “rooms” (think, Secret Garden), with lots of winding pathways, corners of rich colour, repeating motifs, borders of sparkly annuals, rows of tall, stately fruit trees, etc. etc.  And there will be lots of narrow hedges, maybe a maze, and then of course, the tall, imposing brick wall to keep out un-washed marauders -hee! hee! hee! hee!

Oops!  I forgot the best bit - there will be a border of civil war blocks added by the despairing cousin from across the seas who’s came to stay - poor thing, her family’s stately home was burnt to the ground and her parent’s have sent her to stay with distant relatives in the old country to keep her out of harm’s way. Alas, all she can do is pine for her friends, cry for the young men, and sit in the garden, day after day, stitching blocks of woe.  I’d better make some more, there won’t be enough to go round.

I’m madly in love with my medallion quilt already!  Monday will be medallion show and tell day so tune in each week to see what the castle gardener has been up to!

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