Tuesday Tutorials: Dresden plate

If any of you know me, you know that yellow and grey are just not my colors.  Yet, when I was walking through my fabric store, The Cotton Shop, the other day I fell is love with this fabric lines by Jackie Studios (there is also 1-2 fabrics by Camelot Fabrics).  I really was drawn to these fabrics and just had to get them.  BUT FOR WHAT?  Do quilters really need to ask that question when purchasing fabric?  No! Yet my husband continues to think there must be a purpose for my fabric purchases.

It just so happened that this store was having a fun class on using the dresden plate.  This is just what I have been wanting to do and just what use lots of prints of this fun fabric!  

It turned out that the dresden plate was so much easier than it looked.  

You will need:

a template, I have the EZ Quilting My an Easy Dresden Quilt template

rotary cutter & mat

at least 5 different colors of fabric

white (or any solid) fabric for the background)

sewing machine & accessories

Tip #1 the Block will turn out much larger than you think it will.  I cut some of my wedges with 6" strips of fabric and they create a 14 1/2" circular block.  Other wedges were cut with 5" strips of fabric and they created a 12" circular block.  

Start out by cutting your fabric into strips the width that you want your wedge length to be.  With these strips and your rotary cutter cut your wedges rotating back n forth as shown above.  You will need 20 wedges per circular block, so I made 4 of each color per block.  

  

After all the wedges are cut, fold the wide end of the wedge in half (right sides together) and stitch them.  You can see I like to chain stich making these steps go so much faster

Next we turn the seam right side out and finger press open.  Iron this now so that it will lay straight.

Now you can start sewing the wedges together, make sure you backstitch the top of the wedges so that they will not come undone.

After each addition you will need to iron the pieces to keep them straight.  Ironing is VERY important to get your dresden block to lay straight.

Keep all the seams going the same directions while ironing so that it will lay much better.

I stiched 4 groups of 5 together and then stitched those four quarters together

Next the dresden circles all need appliqued onto their background.  You can decide which way you would like to applique these on, I am doing the applique by had.

Next circles will need to be appliqued to the center of the dresden 'flowers'.  Mine have yet to be finished but I will be using 5" circles for the 6" dresden wedge flowers and 3 1/2" circles for the 5" dresden wedge flowers.

Last of all you finish this like you would any quilt  with your backing, batting, quilting and binding.  Then I will have a beautiful table runner for my dining room table.

Dresden

Every month at my local fabric store, The Cotton Shop, I go to the Block party.  We make a BOM (block of the month) and take a project we have been working on to share with the other women.  Last month Hailey accompanied me and this is where we learned about their kids summer sewing camp.   She's excited to go and has been having so much fun sewing away on her 4 patch quilt.  I love the fabric she chose.

Here is a sample of what she'll be making at her summer camp, it's all camping supplies:

So I am leaving in a few days on vacation and so I won't be able to attend this months Block Party.  Sad I know, but I'm so excited for my upcoming vacation to worry about this, plus I decided to attend another class instead.  

Last Saturday they offered a Dresden plate class and I have often been admiring the beautiful quilts made with the Dresden plates.  

Here is two that I think are so pretty!

It's always fun to learn a new technique so I took the class. I decided to start with small circles and here is what I made in the class.

I love the colors and I will be making a table runner with these blocks.  I guess we'll have to see how long it takes to get them made :)