the VT jen quilt

I was going into my last week of maternity leave when I got this message from my friend Jen...

My first instinct was, "Yeah, totally love to except I have no idea how to do curves."  The pattern, the color combo, the vintage quilting - I knew I had to at least try because I was falling in love with this quilt.  So I did.  And then I just jumped right in, sewing for hours every day.  

I admit, I'm a lazy pinner. And this pattern - "Orange Peel" - requires a ton of pinning.  But since it was my first time trying this pattern, I made the blocks big and trimmed them down to size.  The quilt Jen sent me is by Densye Schmidt, and her pattern was for a crib-sized quilt.  I just increased the templates to 121% to end up with a bigger lap-sized quilt.

The original quilt colors were close to Hokie maroon and orange, but not exactly.  Knowing that Jen wanted this to be a Hokie quilt, I brought my Hokie car sticker into Joann and matched the colors exactly.  The names are "Claret Wine" and "Pumpkin" and the lady at the Joann cutting counter complimented me on my "beautiful autumn colors."  Ha!

For the quilting, I copied the Denyse Schmidt quilt, echoing the circles.  In the areas in the middle of the circles I free-motion quilted the diamonds that follow the curves.

I asked Jen what kind of backing she wanted since the original quilt had a hospital-green backing and I figured that wasn't her favorite.  She responded that a Hokie quilt should go all-out, so Hokie orange it was!  And Jen loved the idea of a polka dot.  As luck would have it, Denyse Schmidt designs fabrics for Joann, and this is her polka dot!

I washed it last night, making it all crinkly and cuddly and one of the softest quilts I've ever made.  I may have wrapped myself in it and laid on the couch in a half-comatose state.  But this morning, I wrapped it up and shipped it off to its new home with Jen.  Where it will get loved and used and appreciated.

Ed:   I may have had a hard time with this quilt, and many times may have gotten through it by promising myself it'd be the only time I'd ever do an Orange Peel quilt.  I made the same promises to myself after Britton was born.  But not three years after I had her, we forgot how hard it all was and were planning for a sibling.  It took less time for this!  I'm now contemplating an Orange Peel quilt in Robin's Egg Blue and dark grey.....