Kaleidoscope Medallion

Well, I TOLD you I was intrigued with Ricky Tims's kaleidoscope quilts, now I will SHOW you just how intrigued I was!  I've decided to make one of these as a center for my Block of the Month quilt with the quilt guild blocks.  I played with the layout in EQ7, here's my final (?) version.

I think this layout is a lot more interesting than my other two choices, which were:

Soooooooo!  Guess what I did!?  Yep!  I made a medallion kaleidoscope!  At first I didn't know what I was doing (mirror images always confuse and befuddle me!)  but I followed the directions, and it all came together as I went along.  Just like Ricky Tims said,  "Trust the process!"  It works!  

Here is my medallion, in each of its five stages, first the layers of strata, then the stars.

Round 1:  

 

Round 2:  

  

Round 3:  

  

Round 4:  

  

Round 5:  

  

So, there it is! I have to say that Round 5 didn't go as planned in the directions.  I wanted to use the blue focus fabric in the kaleidoscope but didn't have much left.  Not even a 2" strip! I pre-cut my borders at the very beginning while I still had long strips so I didn't have to piece the border more than once per side.  I didn't want to use those  or cut into them even a little!  So all I have left were small pieces, so I FUDGED the last strip.  I sewed the 3 rows, but then figured out where the point would come and put my scrap of fabric there on each half of the strata and sewed.  I aligned my template and cut, making sure there would be seam allowance all around.  It looked like this:

I'm not sure how it will all sew together, the layers didn't have that tight "fit" that the other strata did.  More "fudging" may be in the works as I sew these pieces together.  But I had enough scraps to make it work and I think it looks great!  I'm not sure what the final quilt will look like exactly.  EQ7 shows the final quilt as finishing off at about 90" x 90" with a 36" medallion set on point,  six 12" blocks with 1.5" sashing per side, and a 4" final border.    I could put the medallion square on too instead of on point but the quilt would be smaller and I wouldn't be able to use all the blocks.  So I will play with these things after the medallion is done.  

Stay tuned!