The first piece of big news is that the center medallion is done! Take a look:

The appliqué around the outer edges of the medallion includes eight vines, 24 petals, four circles, 12 leaves around the petals, and 56 leaves along the stems. That’s 104 pieces total. That doesn’t include any of the appliquéd pieces in the center of the block — but then, who’s counting?

Here is the medallion on point, as it will be in the finished quilt:

The second piece of news is that I changed the layout. Not a huge change but a significant one. After writing a couple weeks ago about positioning the boldest block in the bottom left quadrant, a couple of my readers suggested trying it in the upper right position. I knew that wasn’t going to happen because I had auditioned that block in every possible position and was happy with its final destination. Still am. No, the change was prompted by my daughter-in-law, Jeanne Ann, who pointed out there was no blue in the upper right side of the quilt.

What I wound up doing was switching the position of the top two blocks. Here’s the “before”. . .

. . . and here’s the “after”:

(Boy, the time of day the photos were taken sure affects the colors.)

Now all four quadrants have a light blue in the background of one of the blocks. The two blocks at the top are the smallest visually in that they take up the least amount of space inside their blocks so it was important to position the remaining “heavier” blocks at the bottom.

Now take a look at the revised blocks with the center medallion in place and the setting triangle diamonds complete:

I was hoping to have the top complete by the end of July. Not going to happen, as there are mere hours left in the month. I do think I can have it done by next week, though. Now comes the big push!