Bloggers' Quilt Festival... Scrappy Dresden Plate/

A couple of years ago, Bunny Hill Designs sponsored a Scrappy Dresden plate quilt along. I have always loved Dresden Plate quilts. It was actually the first quilt pattern I ever made, over 25 years ago, and I have made several more since. So when I saw this quilt along, I gladly joined in. As usual, it took me several years before I got it completely put together, quilted and bound. It was finally finished this year, in August, and I am thrilled with the way it turned out, and I'd like to share it with the blogging community.

 I love doing scrappy quilts. Sometimes I like them all helter skelter and anything goes, as long as no two like fabrics are touching. Sometimes, as in this quilt, I like the scrappy to be controlled with a constant background and some unifying elements. With this one, the plates went on a white background, and the aqua cornerstones and the pink border provided the unifying elements. I further unified the Dresden Plates by giving each horizontal row the same colour center, but continued with the scrappy with each row's colour being different.

 I quilted it, on my long arm machine, with an all over feather design in the white background areas. Inside each Dresden Plate, I quilted a modified continuous curve in the petals and a five petaled flower star shape into each center.

The border has feathered vines that flow continuously around the entire quilt. It is bound with a diagonally printed stripe, with a narrow faux piping fabric in the same aqua as the cornerstones.

Here's a view of the backing, which shows a more detailed view of the quilting in the plates and the borders. I hope you have enjoyed looking at this quilt as much as I enjoyed making and sharing it. I'm linking up to Amy's Creative Side: Scrappy Quilts.

Scrappy Dresden Plates is a Flimsy

 It is done, at least to flimsy stage, and can now go to the top of Mount-to-be-quilted. This quilt was started as part of the quilt along hosted by Bunny Hill Designs, however I deviated quite a bit from their instructions, since I wanted a bigger quilt, and didn't want the coloured sashing, or the scalloped border. I wanted to keep the center of the quilt light and airy, with just a little bit of colour in the cornerstones to give it a bit of interest, and someplace for the eye to rest in all that white. I found the border fabric in my stash, that had the same light and airy feel to it. I didn't realize until after I had it on that the flowers in the border mimic the shapes of the Dresden Plates, since the flowers in the borders are daisies. I don't know if it is visible in the pictures. It is really windy out today, so it was rather hard to get the pictures.

The final size of this turned out to 80 by 97 inches. I'm linking up to Amandajean's Finish it Up Friday post at her blog Crazy Mom Quilts. And after I finish with this, I have 3 quilts to do for Evelyn, which I am hoping to get done over the weekend, and then it will be my turn for a quilt, and then Christine's turn. So, I guess I'd best get off the computer, and get at it.

Design Wall Monday April 16, 2012

I have a couple of things going on right now. OK, I'll admit it, more then a couple. but only a couple of things on my design wall. First off, the last 2 weeks worth of New York Beauties, using the April Colour Challenge Palette. Actually, I think the top left block is from last month. I think it's kinda cool how well the March and April palettes work together. I should have 4 more blocks done in April's colours by the end of the month.

The other thing up there is the Scrappy Dresden Plates. I have one last row to sew on, and then the last outer sashing strip, and the body of this quilt will be done. This is a really poor picture of it. I tried adjusting this photo to get the colours right, but it didn't quite work. They are a lot prettier than this. After the last row is sewn on, there will be some sort of a border, still to be decided, and it will count as done. This started off as a quilt along from Bunny Hill Designs, but I've deviated from their instructions. Theirs is quite a bit smaller, and is finished with a scalloped border, which I'm not doing. I wanted to keep the sashing white, with only the corner stones as a bit of contrast. This way I can do lots of fun filler quilting around the plates, without having to do a separate sashing quilting design.
I'm thinking of doing something similar to what I did here in the Sweet Treats quilt, and have the feathers roll up to and around the dresden plates, and then curl around the corner stones. I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times. There are lots of fun quilts and eye candy to look at there.

Design Wall Monday April 9, 2012

 I have a few things that I've been working on up on the wall today. First off are the New York Beauties from last week, using the colours for the April Colour Challenge Palette. There is a new block posted today, and I hope to get a couple of them done this week.

 Then there are the Dresden Plates that I've been working on for the last couple of months. I'm doing 20 of the, and all but 2 of them are stitched down to their backgrounds. Originally, I was going to use invisible thread to sew them down, But then I started thinking about how a lot of vintage Dresdens were stitched down using a blanket stitch in a contrasting colour, often black.

I have a wall full of very pretty variegated threads that I use for quilting, so I thought "what would it look like if I used the fancy threads to stitch them down?" Answer, quite lovely. I hope to get the last 2 of these stitched to their backgrounds this week, and maybe even get a start on putting it together.

 And last, their is my Aunt Lucy's Medallion quilt, designed by Lori Smith. I'm using the collection of fabrics from Moda called Wildflower Serenade in this one, plus a few extras from my stash. I'm ready to start the next set of sampler blocks to go into the next border. According to the pattern, this finishes at 55 inches square. I generally Like my quilts bigger than this, so I might be adding something to it, although I'm not sure just what, at this point. It would make a good wall hanging, at the size the pattern gives, but I don't have any walls that size to put it on. I'll have to let this one simmer.

I'm linking up to Judy Laquidara's Design Wall Monday. Lots and lots of fun stuff to see over there.

Design Wall Monday Feb 27, 2012

I have my Bunny Hill Scrappy Dresden Plates up on my wall today. The centers are all stitched down, which was step 2. And step 3 hasn't come out yet, so this means I'm actually finished this step early, or at least on time. I would guess that the next step will be to sew them down to the background squares. I chose 5 different fabrics for the centers, and I'm going to lay them out like they are now, with each row of 4 blocks the same colour in the middle. They are a bit brighter in person than in the photo. It's hard to get accurate colours indoors, late afternoon, even when using the photo program to tweak the pictures, but it's close enough. I'm inking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times. There is lots and lots of wonderful eye candy over there to look at.

Saturday Summary

I have had the BEST week, well, except for not being able to go and visit Noel and Laurie and little Avery. The last time we went up to see them in January, the drive home was just a tad nerve wracking, since we ran into closed roads and blowing snow and a snowstorm. So we decided that we wouldn't risk it again this winter, which makes me kinda sad. I'm hoping for a Skype visit sometime today or tomorrow. But I've had all this past week off, and don't have to go back to work again until Thursday, so I had lots of time to sew and quilt.
The big accomplishment, of course, was getting RRCB finished. But in between that I've been doing other things as well. I loaded Make Your Point onto the longarm, and have gotten a start at quilting her. I had originally planned on doing the feathers through the whole quilt, but once I did one pass with them, I decided not to. First because they are quite time consuming, and second, because I think I would have lost the effect of the piecing. So I've decided to alternate the rows, one with the feathers, and the other with continuous curves. I'm liking the way it is looking.
The other things I've been working on lately, is a few customer quilts. This one is a lap sized that Christine did for her Nana. I had to do an overall feather meander on it, since that's what the quilt told me it wanted. And I'm becoming rather addicted to doing them. If you click on the pictures and biggie size them the quilting shows up better. I have a backlog of customer quilts up there, which are on my to-do list after Make Your Point comes off. When doing the customer quilts, I schedule one of my own after doing 4 or 5 of theirs. I have a really bad habit of forgetting to take pictures of theirs, though. I really am going to have to start being more conscious of that
Then yesterday, I sat at my machine for most of the day and finished piecing the rest of the Dresden plates for the  Bunny Hill Scrappy Plates. All of the plates are now done, and I have the centers cut out, and ready to have their edges finished and appliqued in place. That's likely what I'll be doing this afternoon, until we go over to Matt and Becca's for supper. It's kinda strange, we all live in the same city, but still hardly get to see them very often. I think we might have seen more of Noel and Laurie this winter, who live 4 hours away, than we have of Matt and Becca.
And finally, I've been working on one of the stocking kits from Bucilla. This is the Golfing Snowman one for Matt. I chose this one to start with, as it had the smallest number of pieces, and also the smallest number of little bitty pieces. I am having a considerable amount of fun doing it. I think I might be hooked.  And it's all Debbie's fault. She showed some pictures of her collection here. And then she did a series showing the steps in actually making one and one of those posts is here. I have 4 of these to do, with a fifth as a possibility, although I haven't ordered it yet. I also have several ornament kits, as well. These have replaced the knitting I was doing for a while, although I'm sure at some point, I'll get back to it. And now, to go and work on Dredsen Plates. So much fun.

Design Wall Monday Feb 6, 2012

I've got a couple of things going at the moment. Well, if I'm being totally honest, more than a couple........ Anyway, to be more accurate, a couple of things on my wall. After finishing Endless Chain last week, I wanted to work on something fun, and relatively non complex. So I've been sewing Scrappy Dresden Plates for the Quilt Along from Bunny Hill Designs Twelve are pieced together, but I have 8 more to do, because I want mine bigger than the instructions call for. I like to make quilts that will fit double or Queen size beds. They would then also work on a twin, but would hang all the way to the floor on the twin, depending on the height of the mattress.  I think I am going to do different coloured solids or tone on tones  for the centers.
The other thing I'm working on is my February UFO which is Bonnie Hunter's mystery from Last year, Roll Roll Cotton Boll. But I'm putting my own personal twist into it, since I really don't want to make any more of the 8 1/2 inch string squares. So I'm substituting a red fabric for half of them.

                        
It doesn't look like much on the wall, as yet. But I did up a virtual quilt in EQ7 using this layout, and it looks quite good. From a distance there is almost a curvy look to it with this layout. Once the borders go on, I thing it will work quite nicely. To see other walls. head on over to where I'm linking up, at Patchwork Times And now, I'm going to see if I can get some piecing done on this baby before I have to go in to work this afternoon.

Design Wall Monday Jan 16

Well, I must say that was an interesting, not in a good way, morning. I had to be at the city courthouse bright and early this morning, at 9 AM. Not a good start for me, not being a morning person, to begin with. Then through the courthouse security, body scan with those  hand wand thingies, and metal detector, and purse search. Good thing I didn't take my knitting, since that would have counted as "sharp objects" Upstairs to the 14th floor to a very crowded courtroom. Have I mentioned before I don't do well with crowds, let alone crowds where I don't know a single person? Then they brought in the people being put on trial, suffice to say a violent one, although not murder, and read off all the charges, and they all pleaded "not guilty" Then, we were all broken into groups of 20, and sent off to wait in small jury rooms to wait, and wait, and wait.......... Then, finally called into the courtroom, put up into the witness box, in front of all kinds of people to answer the lawyers' one question. I guess I flunked, because they sent me home, at about 12:30. That has to have been one of the creepiest experiences of my life. Really, really glad that is done.
So, I came home and decided to do a little fun sewing, and made up another Dresden Plate for the Scrappy Dresden Plate quilt along and  now I have 2, and I'm liking what I'm seeing, so far.

The other thing that I'm supposed to be working on is my UFO for January. It is a quilt pattern called Endless Chain. A number of years ago I found a really good series of books by Emilie Richards. If you've never read her stuff, I recommend it highly. The Shenandoah Series follows a group of friends in  small community, and, of course, quilting figures strongly in the books. All of the books in this series are named after quilts. One of them, named "Endless Chain", caught my eye, and it got added to the list of quilts I have fallen in love with, and had to make. So, I sent away for the instruction book, and got to work. The quilt in the book uses a stripe fabric in the wedges, and I really liked the effect, but didn't want to use a stripe, so I decided to make my own by piecing the wedges. Whenever I feel like sewing, but without thinking about it, I pull out my odds and ends scraps and piece up a bunch of wedges, on paper, kind of like string piecing, or crumb piecing, but with a regulated shape and size. I'm getting close now to having enough of the wedges pieced, and am ready to start sewing it together. I had originally planned on just starting to take the blocks off the wall and start sewing them together. But when I thought about it, I realized that if I did that, I'd be sewing all the center circles on when it is really large, and difficult to maneuver under the machine. So, I think the next step is going to be adding the center appliqued circles to each of the hexagons, and then I can start sewing it together. So, that is what I am going to start to do today. 
I'm linking up to the Design wall Monday linky at Patchwork Times. And, I don't know why, but the type size in this post keeps changing. Very strange......