Early American Patchwork: Orange Peel Blocks?

 

D.A.R. Museum

Center of an early quilt possibly made before 1800

This medallion with a basket center came up when I was searching for accurate quilts

made in the last quarter of the 18th century to celebrate our

250th anniversary this year.

Colonial Williamsburg

The curved "melon" or "orange peel" border is similar in another early quilt attributed to the Philower family of Virginia.

The curved leaf shape could be pieced or appliqued. And variations became popular in the early years of American independence after 1800, particularly as a repeat block pattern.

International Quilt Museum
Byron & Sara Rhodes Dillow Collection
Possibly New Hampshire, 1820-1840, 2008.040.0083

https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/quilt/20080400083

Such repeating block-style designs were not stitched until the 19th century when the rather sophisticated curved design developed, often pieced in the contrasting Pompadour browns & purples common at the time for dresses.

Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas

Sally Casey Thayer Collection

See more quilts in this popular brown & white combination at these two posts:
https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2018/11/dark-ground-chintzes-4-what-color-is-it.html

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2025/11/250th-anniversary-quilt-pattern.html

One pattern variation is a square enclosing a shape with curved sides.

 In these early versions the quiltmakers set up a high contrast

 between the dark & light florals as had been a fabric fashion for several years

around the turn of the century.

The alternate shading idea is called counterchange.

What's dark in one block is light in the next.

Connecticut Project & the Quilt Index

Dates: Probably 1800-1820 on the brown & white versions.

Deerfield Museum Collection

And with changes in color perhaps 1810-1840

The dramatic blue border print has a rather short repeat indicating it is a roller

print after 1810 rather than an earlier plate print or toile.

The Orange Peel pattern continued popular, becoming a staple in the commercial pattern business that began in the late-19th-century. BlockBase shows several variations.

The top row is color variations on the classic design with #1520 a shape variant.

Patterns in the bottom row have more seams but a similar effect when set all over.

1527b perhaps 1820s-1830s

The Connecticut project recorded this quilt made in Woodstock, attributed to two women:

Sophronia Barrett (1822-1917) & Emily Vinton (1843-1919), probably mother & daughter.

In pink & green calicoes, perhaps post-Civil-War.

https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=fullrec&kid=17-13-23

The earliest published name and design seems to be this

from an early (1890 or so) Ladies Art Company catalog

where an Orange Peel cardboard pattern cost a dime. 

One can see the origin of the name

although Ruth Finley in her book published in 1929 called it Melon Patch.

The spherical melon, like an orange, is usually eaten after being cut into curved sections.

 In 1929.the same year Finley's book was published, pattern designer 

Ruby McKim called a version "Lafayette Orange Peel"

 in her Kansas City Star column adding a historical tale to 

the Ladies' Art Company's name .

Version from the syndicate using names Laura Wheeler & Alice Brooks

I was disappointed this rather sophisticated repeating block design is just not an 18th-century

 early pattern but "after 1820 or so." And what did LaFayette have to do with it?

More on the pattern's "history" in the next post.