Try This Easy Quilting Design

I fell in love with Orange Peels when I made this quilt for my book Remembering Adelia. That was a long time ago but I honestly think many of the quilts we make with reproduction fabrics stand up to the test of time, don't you? I will never get tired of them, no matter how old they are. Certain patterns are just timeless.

                                

This was such a fun quilt to make and really good practice for hand applique with the simple shapes. Here's an entertaining link if you're interested in the history of this pattern. Some historians say it dates back to the American Revolution. 

I used that peel pattern as a quilting design on the Pink Patches quilt in my book, The Civil War Sewing Circle. 

You can easily make a template in a peel shape for your quilting design and mark the top with a washable marker. You might even find a peel stencil. Instead of using a stencil or making my own from template plastic, here's what I did:

I marked the center of the block and then traced around a small bowl with a water soluble marking pen to make a half circle on one side. (Experiment with a bowl or plate that has the right arc that fits your block.) Then I turned the quilt and used the bowl again to trace intersecting half circles around each side of the block. Better than a template because you can do it easily with any size block, large or small - just find the right bowl with a nice arc. Here's a sample square:

Then turn the block and mark on the other two sides with  half circles the same way.

The half circles intersect and you get this peel design when you mark each side of the block with an arc.

Then, just quilt on the lines and dampen or wash the quilt gently to remove all traces of the marking pen. It was easy to do this on a small quilt and it turned out very nice, I think. I'm not sure I'd try it on a larger quilt unless I had a lot of time. You can also mark circles between the blocks to get the same Orange Peel design but doing it this way gave me a little more control as I was working on each block. I especially like the way it looks on the plain blocks where the stitches stand out a little more.

Oh, and if you haven't tried it yet, my favorite quilting thread is YLI quilting thread. Not sure if it's still available in this color but I'm very partial to the light brown as it gives a nice antique look when stitched on both light and dark fabrics. 

Next week I'll try to reprise my tips on hand quilting for those of you just starting out. 

Enjoy your weekend!  I'm already thinking of fall . . . . Still much too hot here in Chicagoland.