Orange Peel QAL- A finished quilt top {Hot+Cold}

I finally had time to work on my Orange Peel quilt along quilt top over the weekend.  Entries close on September 8th so I was really pushing the dead line here.

Last time I talked to you about my quilt top I was feeling less than thrilled with the layout.  Piecing was not going smoothly and I really had fallen out of love with the design.  But after finishing up my center block for the Round Trip Quilts round robin bee I pulled the blocks out again and just started sewing them together, first into sets of two, then into blocks of four, and strips of eight, then rows of seven...  and along the way, I managed to fall in love again.

finished orange peel center

If I was to make this quilt again, I'd definitely do some things differently.

1. My HST were much smaller than I originally intended.  A math mistake led to 2.5" HST instead of the 5" I had intended to make.
2. I skipped trimming my HST (which was dumb) and it made the piecing that much more difficult.
3. My orange peels lost their crisp points and are a little blunted.
4. I'd concentrate the peels more to the center of the quilt and show more completed orange peel segments instead of laying them all over the top.  As it is, I think there's only one or two places where the four points all converge to form the traditional orange peel design.

But c'est la vie.  That's Life.  I like what I made but it's a little different from what I imagined when I started. 

finally trimmed my HST by hand with scissors

I added a thin 3" border in solid white to frame the orange peel top, then bordered the whole thing with some Cotton + Steel Netorious in Cloud Silver.  This warm grey off sets the saturated orange peel center nicely I think.

I think I have a plan for quilting...  I'm picturing phantom orange peels quilted on the empty blocks and HSTs.  Maybe this will help with the idea that I think there should be more concentrated orange peels on the top.

I've already picked out a backing fabric.  It's some extra yardage I got on super sale earlier this year.  Not sure what it is.  I was a little short so I decided to use up the rest of my favorite bunny print and add some aqua stripes to get the size where I needed it.

I've really had a love-hate relationship with this top.  I was so excited about the concept when I started sketching designs and piecing the blocks.  Then when I actually got to piecing the quilt top, I hated how it looked.  As I said earlier, I am finally at the point where I can appreciate it and enjoy this quilt but it's really been touch and go... That's why I am calling this quilt Hot+Cold.  I hope to snap some better photos of this quilt soon so stay tuned for more.  Once the weather cools down I can get to some quilting!