dresden plate block | WOMBAT QUILTS

This week, despite a cold, I managed to finish up another of my outstanding WIP… this one had been sitting in a plastic bag for a couple of years. It started in December 2013 as a Bee block for the amazing Nicole at Modern Handcraft.

I ended up making a couple of these Dresdens, I loved the first one so much, but they then sat unused for years, until now…

dresden quilt

This was a pretty quick project to finish up…. First I took my four finished Dresdens and a couple of yards of red pin dots by Lake House….

quilt detail

Because I could free float the Dresdens anywhere on the quilt it was fun to play with an off kilter lay out.

quilting detail 2

When I was happy with the placement of each plate, I spray basted them to the backing fabric, and then sewed around each Dresden.

dresden plate

I then went in and cut out as much of the backing fabric as I could out of the center of the each Dresden, just to cut some of the bulk out of the top…

dresden back detail

All that was left was to quilt it – I went with a off center grid pattern and my trusty cream Aurifil thread ….

dresden detail

And bind it – I used scrappy solids and machine binding to finish her up…

binding

The finished quilt ended up measuring 44″ x 65″ which is an unusual size for me, but I think it will be the perfect size for someone’s bed….

Last week, while drugged up on cold and flu medication, I decided to play with my small stash of Liberty fabrics. I started slowly collecting fabric just over a year a go, when a darling friend gave me two Liberty lawn fat quarters as a thank you present.

For those of you not familiar with the fabric it is a light weight, beautiful cotton that comes in the most fabulous designs and is made by the famous British store Liberty of London….Ironically I have bought quite a bit of stuff at Liberty in my time in England but never went to the fabric section!

I had originally popped my Liberty cherry with the sample pillow for my Introduction to Paper Piecing class at Modern Domestic (my main Liberty enabler!).

This 16 inch star used some bigger slices of my stash but I loved how the delicate Liberty fabric plays against the Essex linen.

Anyway this week I had the crazy idea to make some mini dresden plate flowers with my Liberty stash. I wanted to go small because I also had a collection of 21/2 inch squares that my darling BF had bought back for me from London…and I wanted hand work because it meant I did not have to leave the couch. The end result was this…

The finished 16 point flower is 5 inches wide.

Somewhere during this process my husband declared that I had officially gone crazy and I think he might be right. I have made up a little travel kit and I am now obsessed with making these things….

I found a pattern sheet on-line at AMC-Quilts that I used (LINK HERE)… their PDF pattern was the perfect size and I just printed it on card stock and cut out the petal pieces and started to sew.