January 22, 2011

Now that's my Quilt!

248 Blue Dresden Plate Blades
Today I finished cutting and sewing all of the Dresden Plate Blades that I need for the Dresden Quilt.  I even went back through my much picked over blue fabrics and found some more that I could use.  The pattern calls for 208 blades, but somewhere; I don't recall where I saw an adorable Dresden pillow that will look awesome on the bed with this quilt so I just had to cut more blades.  With the pillow I needed 240 and I cut 248 so I'm good to start sorting and planning.  I just love this quilt.  I've always approached the traditional patterns such as Double Wedding Ring, Grandmother's Fan, and the Dresden Plate all with the same slight trepidation mixed with a bit of longing.  After all who wouldn't want to touch one of those quilts and say "I made this."  It's concept of actually making it that is the daunting part.

So far the blades have been fun, even though cutting fabric has never been my favorite part of quilt making.  Upon request DH made my plastic template for me.  With it I can cut 8" strips flip it back and forth a bit and be done in no time.  Then it was off to the sewing machine to finish the flat ends into points and once you figure out what they're saying to do that goes nice and fast too.  The pressing is a little tedious because ideally the seam on the back of the point should be preciously in line with the center of the blade but after a bit of finagling I determined eyes are making it - eyes can judge just how centered my points are which helped tremendously.

Oh the joy of moving on to the next step.  I'm once again a little concerned about sewing in circles but if I don't think about it I'm certain I'll do just fine.  Do you have a project that just seems to go your way?  Each time I work on the Dresden Blades I'm amazed at how natural it is.
Lollipop Quilt Binding
No need to worry before I dug into my Dresden Blades I added the binding to the Lollipop Quilt so that one is all nice and finished.  The green binding really looks great.  I'm thrilled this green was included in the kit.  I even like the way the green looks on the back finishing off the poppies.  Oh what fun.
Baby Quilt from Lollipop Quilt Kit

3 comments:

Heather Landry said...

That Lollipop quilt looks fantastic! I can't wait to see how the Dresden comes out!

QuiltSue said...

Your Lollipops looks like a wonderful quilt. I'm so glad you had fun with it.

Now I'm looking forwad to seeing your dresden quilt take shape.

Vicki said...

The lollipop quilt is so cute, great job! Yes there certainly is a charm to those traditional quilt patterns and personally I think at least once in everyone's quilting life they should make one traditional pattern. I'm still not sure which one I would like to do, but at this point I seem to be leaning to a log cabin, but that may change.