Nearly everyone remembers sleeping under a quilt made by their mother or grandmother, and many of those quilts were made from time-honored traditional quilt designs. Today’s quiltmakers were challenged by the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky to create original quilts based on the classic Orange Peel block pattern.

Robin Gausebeck
Orange Blossom Special
Rockford, IL

Classic Orange Peel blocks in purple, lilac, orange and green grow organically in an asymmetrical arrangement filled with motion. 

Orange Blossom Special represents my idea of playing around with shape and color, using a theme and variations approach to the design. I chose one version of the Orange Peel block and, using Electric Quilt, changed the arc configuration, re-sized it many times and arranged the permutations in a visually pleasing way.

The light to dark shades of both purple and green flow from the center out and vise versa, creating visual interest. The Orange Peel quiling motif extends the center of the quilt into the borders to help reinforce the design.

Nancy Eisenhauer
Oranges
Belleville, Illinois
Nancy played with shading to make her off-center orange appear to leap off the quilt.

Shafer Gallery Press Release

Expanding  the Vision, Advancing the Art
National Quilt Museum

Sherri Bain Driver
Sandia Sunset
Northglenn, Colorado
Sherri interpretes the Orange Peel block as a symmetrical on-point composition in rusts, browns, and purples.

Karen Watts
Tangerine Dream
Houston, Texas
This quilt adapts many Orange Peel block designs to a four-block setting in blues and oranges.

Michael Michalski
Cosmic Plum
Brooklyn, New York
Michael's design uses no orange, simply greens and purples and features an off-center border that narrows at the ends.