Friday, October 21, 2011

Circles & Circles & Circles

circles & circles & circles 3

I've always loved patterns of circles. I can remember "doodling" with a compass when I was in elementary school, filling up my notebook with circles and pin pricks from the compass needle. Are kids even allowed to have those metal compasses anymore? Probably too much like a weapon for schools these days.

circles & circles & circles 1

I like the secondary designs created at the intersections. Because of this, I've always liked the orange peel quilt block, although when you see a single block it doesn't immediately call circles to mind.

orange peel block

But when they're repeated in a quilt, you see those circles!

orange peel quilt

Curved piecing still intimidates me, so I thought I'd use an orange peel design as an embroidery piece. I created the design in EQ7, starting with a stencil block from the Block Library.

orange peel resize 1

I selected all the lines and reduced it down to 25% (which made the design 2" x 2").

orange peel resize 2

Then I copied and pasted the small design until it filled the 8" x 8" block.

orange peel resize 3

I then printed out the design and used a water-soluble pencil to trace it onto my fabric.

orange peel tracing

There are so many different patterns within this design to emphasize.

design options

When I was about halfway done with this piece I began second guessing my choices and started a second panel. I eventually switched back and finished my original design, but I'll finish this second one soon too.

op version 2

Glad I went back to this one and finished it!

circles & circles & circles 2

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I'm going to link this project up over at Stitched in Color as part of the Celebrate Color series. Go check out the beautiful projects!

Celebrate Color

9 comments:

  1. Its gorgeous :) I love the orange peel design, but have yet to try it for myself.

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  2. This is beautiful! What are you going to use the block for?

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  3. Thanks :)
    @Alli- It's all done! It has a backing and everything. Right now I'm using it as a table topper, but I might eventually add some loops to make it a wallhanging.

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  4. It's so pretty! This is one of my favorite patterns as well. I like orange peels on fabric, in embroidery, anything!

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  5. I voted for your Jenny! Beautiful!

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  6. Thanks for the kind words everyone!

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  7. Hi :) I love this... would you be able to share the design for us to print and embroider?

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