Town Square

If you love the Waddington Road fabrics and medallion-style quilts, watch for the summer issue of Primitive Quilts & Projects magazine! Barbara Eikmeier designed the "Town Square" quilt featured inside.

"Town Square" designed by Barbara J. Eikmeier; quilted by Theresa Ward;
featured in Primitive Quilts & Projects Summer 2017 issue

This gorgeous quilt was inspired by antique border medallion quilts that Barb has long admired. She talked to us about her design:

Q. Why did you decide to create a medallion quilt?

BE: I work a lot from antique quilts for inspiration. I’d been admiring some from the 1850s in similar colors to the Waddington Road prints. I decided to do a composite from several different vintage quilts.

Q. How do you go about designing a quilt like this?

BE: I knew what types of pieced borders I wanted to use, and the trick became how to make it all fit. I started with the center design and yellow triangle border and then adjusted border widths to make the math work.

Q. Do you have a favorite border in the quilt?

BE: Yes—the seventh border, which combines half-square triangles and four-patches. I saw it in one of the antique quilts and liked it. I thought it was unique. It’s a slightly wider border, too, so it gives a little punch in just the right place.

Quilt measures 80" square

Q. Tell us about the outer two borders and how they work together.

BE: As I was laying out the outer half-square triangle border, the corners weren’t turning out in a way I liked. I decided to put pinwheel blocks in the corners instead, which meant that I needed to join the last two borders together before adding them to the quilt.

Q. How did you add interest through the plain borders?

BE: Those are often called coping borders. I aimed for variety—I intentionally didn’t use a fabric that I’d already used in a previous coping border. Antique quilts were done that way—usually based on how much fabric was available, but I like the look.

Q. Tell us about the quilting.

BE: Theresa Ward from Always Quilts machine quilted it. I debated how we should quilt it. So many of the antique quilts have a more utilitarian design, so I didn’t want to do custom quilting in each border. The design we decided upon is called Axle, and it looks like an apple core shape that echoes. It has the feel of the Baptist Fan motif but with a different shape.

Q. What do you like best about this quilt?

BE: I just love how this quilt looks. To me, it looks really comfortable. You don’t need to have the whole quilt displayed to appreciate the design element. I also think the magazine did a beautiful job on the photograph.

Q. Why did you name this quilt Town Square?

BE: I lived in Pennsylvania for a number of years, and every small town had a square, and the streets radiated out from the center. This design creates the same feeling, so I named it Town Square.

Great news! There's a kit for this project.

Kits can be ordered from Quilt Corral in Willows, CA by calling 530-934-8116 or email quiltcorral2488@att.net Cost is $120 including postage. The magazine is extra.

See the entire Waddington Road collection here.

Visit Barb's website here.

Find Primitive Quilts & Projects magazine here.