Modern Irish Medallion QAL Plans

Since the announcement of the Modern Irish Medallion QAL, I have been busily daydreaming of what fabric colorway I want to use and what my center block of the medallion will look like.  What a wonderful way to occupy my brain on the commute to and from work.

I know you are going to be shocked when I say that I want to use a star as my central block.  I searched high and low for a paper piecing template that I could download as I would like for this to be more complex than my usual 8 point stars.  There are apparently lots of really amazing paper pieced star pattern books, but I am not lucky to have one of those on hand.  Instead, I found myself browsing time and time again Wombat Quilt's free paper piecing downloads.

There, Cath had an example Kaleidoscope star block.  I was hooked.

From http://wombatquilts.com/free-paper-piecing-patterns/

I would like my central block to be more scrappy and random, though, as I want the majority of this quilt to be from my scrap bin and stash.  I pulled out my crayons and came up with a potential star design with a little help from my fuzzy buddy, Clarkson.  Does your cat immediately sit on any new-to-him piece of paper? Mine does.  Always.

I finally coaxed him off and finished my all so important coloring....

It seems a bit more "me".  This paper pieced star will finish at 12 inches square.  According to our QAL guidelines, I need to add a border to this block making it 15 inches OR turn it on point and add setting triangles.  I think I'll choose a path once I have the block in front of me.  These things tend to work themselves out.

But what fabrics will I use!?!?  How about these?

I just hope I have enough of the red pin fabric.  Fingers crossed!  You'll see a little white print with black dots on the bottom of the fabric pull.  Yes, I'm going to try once again to use an LV background.  Who knows if I can get the hang of it this time.  I will give it a try and you guys can tell me where/when I go wrong.

This week I will be piecing the central star.  Until then, I am linking up with the MQG Ireland.  If you want to see what others are planning for their medallion quilts, pop on over with me!