Medallion Quilts: Inspiration & Patterns

by Cindy Vermillion Hamilton

A love affair that began 30 years and 50 quilts ago blossoms into this sumptuous collection of Cindy Vermillion Hamilton's medallion quilts. Take a journey through her gallery of magnificent quilts, accompanied by close-ups of the exquisite handwork. These quilts are truly an inspiration, and a number have been prize winners at major quilt shows and have appeared in the AQS wall calendar and in other quilt publications. MARGO'S MEDALLION OF 1840 won first place in the traditional Pieced, Professional category at the AQS Paducah, Kentucky, show in 2004. OLDE ENGLISH MEDALLION is in the collection of the Museum of the American Quilter's Society. The book includes a section on the history of medallion quilts, with photos of gorgeous antiques from the author's collection. Readers will also find help on designing their own quilts in this style. Several beautiful quilts have been patterned for the reader's enjoyment. Quilters can make as many of the borders as they want, or stop after any bo

Genres: Quilting

127 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2006

Reviews

[Pat]

I pulled this off my shelf today because some friends and I were thinking about doing a round robin quilt. Cindy's quilts are amazing, and clever.

I'm sure my impression of this book is colored by actually seeing her quilts a number of years ago and hearing her talk about them. The book barely captures her talent, but it brought back the memories of these powerful quilts immediately.

More than that, it presents many great ideas for adding borders to a central motif. She has a great eye for contrast and scale. Some borders are applique, some are pieced. She makes use of striped fabric in borders both following the stripe and perpendicular to the stripe, adding interest. There's a mix of historic fabric choices and modern ones. There's advice on making borders fit.

Some of my favorite quilts:
-Up by the table of contents is a fascinating work with clamshells and a border full of miniature mariner-like stars.
-The Red Barn quilt has a 4-square of barns at the middle and works out with sawtooth, checkerboard and star borders.
-The Millenium Quilt (Tempus Fugit--make much of time) mixes traditional medallion with a couple of sunflowers on each side.
-The presidents quilt, with an eagle center, two borders with all the presidents in their own little squares and a bunting on toile border.
-Frisky's Garden quilt: an applique-on-plaid border and ticking in the borders with a fun sunflower center.