Pickle Dish Selvage Experiment and Free Pattern

I've always appreciated the pickle dish (aka gypsy kiss) quilt pattern although I've never sewn one.  It appeared to be a very labor intensive design with complicated curves and lots of little pieces; not exactly a choice pattern for me to tackle.  That being the case, when I saw the similar double wedding ring pattern by the Berlin Quilter, it seemed that her use of selvages instead of precisely cut little wedge pieces just might make this assignment a little more doable for me.

As I suspected, sewing the selvages onto a paper pattern foundation proved to be a simple and effective method for creating the dish section of the block.  Trimming the ends after sewing was the only cutting that was required which enabled these sections come together fairly quickly.  Forming the curves wasn't so bad either.  I had to do a little more pinning than I prefer but other than that, they were fairly simple to do.

I backed this little sample with an aqua print, did my usual meandering quilting on my domestic machine and bound the 9" square in a grey and white herringbone.

My block makes a 9" finished square.  Four of these joined together would make a complete 18" finished ring as depicted above.  If you'd like to make a pickle dish, with or without selvages, you may download my pattern for free from my Dropbox site located here.  Best wishes!