Prairie Pop Art

The inspiration for Prairie Pop Art, a new mini quilt pattern in the Little Quilts from the Prairie collection, is an 1855 quilt shown in one of the first quilt magazines I bought years ago. You can see that quilt in the magazine in my blog post here.

Prairie Pop Art, 24" x 29", is sewn using all of the small scale companion prints in my A Prairie Journal for Henry Glass & Co. fabric line.

Because of it's small size, this was a fun quilt for me to machine quilt. I loved quilting the orange peel design in the center of each square, and it's so easy to mark. It seems to be a design I go to again and again for quilting the center of squares of all sizes.  

When machine quilting, my preference is to use a thread to match the fabric in the quilt. So for the squares, I did need to change threads quite often (I always try to match the thread in the bobbin to my backing fabric). After the quilt was pin basted, I marked the orange peel pattern on the squares using a chalk wheel, which is fast and easy to remove. You could certainly mark the pattern before basting, with a chalk pencil or water erasable marking pen. 

I mark the orange peel pattern for quilting using a circle stencil, which can be found at hobby stores in the drafting department or office supply stores. The stencil below has circles from 1 1/4" to 3 1/2" in diameter. You'll also need the marking tool of your choice.

No math needed to determine which circle size is right for your quilt block. Just lay the stencil over your quilt block, move it around, and find the one the fits best! For this block, I will use the 2 3/4" circle stencil. Each circle has hash marks for each quarter section of the circle.

Align the hash marks on opposite sides of the circle with the bottom edge of the square to be quilted.

Use your marking tool (I'm using a chalk wheel, pictured), to mark a semi circle (the top half of the circle).

Rotate the stencil to align with another side of the square, and mark another semi circle.

Rotate the stencil two more times to mark the remaining two sides of the square.

And, voilà! You now have a marked orange peel pattern to quilt!

After quilting, I remove the chalk marks with a toothbrush I keep handy for just that purpose.

Prairie Pop Art is now on the website as a PDF pattern download. You can find the pattern HERE.

Until next time!

Martha