Dresden Plate Quilt Part 2

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I took a tally of the fabric I had left over from my “secret sister” and there were only bits.  I thought it would not be a problem to find suitable sashing and cornerstone fabric from my stash.   To my horror nothing worked so off to the store.  “This should be a piece of cake” I remarked to myself but little did I know.  Two stores later and still nothing. I decided I was wasting too much time so back home I went to look through my stash again.  I felt it was time to start the practice of “stash management” which I had promised myself a while back.

I put the quilt on my design wall and auditioned what I thought would work.  I decided to use the “pink” family for finishing the quilt to stay with the theme “from the heart” and also to use fabric that was light and pale to keep the quilt looking bright and happy.  I dug deep into the bowels of my stash and finally found something. The sashing/cornerstones are actually an “orange” pink.  I wanted something to tone the “hot pink” down a notch and yet keep the quilt pale so the Dresden Plate could come forward and still be happy looking.   I tried and tried to incorporate a second border but my fabrics did not do justice to the quilt so I decided to eliminate it.  With trepidation I sewed the border on.

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The fabric choice was not my favourite but I was practicing “stash management”.   A small detour came in the way of not being able to mitre the corners because I was ½” too short but I did get lots of open space for hand quilting.   When all was said and done I had a very, very messy sewing room with fabrics piled up from the audition and I had a lap quilt that turned out fairly close to what I had envisioned.   As Martha Stewart always said “That is a good thing”.

Dresden Plate Pattern

This past season our quilt guild had a "secret sister" program. It was the first time our guild offered this so I decided to participate. You drew a name out of a hat along with a short profile of your "secret sister".You were never to divulge who your "secret sister" was. Every month you would leave a present at the guild meeting for your "sister" without being seen by anyone. That was difficult to do because the members were always milling about. The program carried on for 8 months and during that time my "secret sister" gave me several pieces of fabric. I wanted to make something special out of that fabric to commemorate the occasion and having thought about it for awhile decided on a lap size Dresden Plate quilt.I have always loved that pattern and have not made one for many years. I hope to surprise my "secret sister" by showing it to her at our guild meeting in September.

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This quilt is my own interpretation of that classic pattern. I wanted something a little different, something that was my own design. So instead of the circle in the centre I decided to applique a heart. The heart was to symbolize how much I appreciated the fabrics she gave me and how much I thought of her as my "sister". The block size is 10" and the blade size I just "eyeballed" until I found a size pleasing to my block and cut out a paper template. Once the blades where cut I sewed across the tops of the fabric pieces to form the points for the blades. I sewed all the blades together trying to get a random placement because I was limited by the number of fat quarters I had. I appliqued the Dresden Plate to the background fabric and used the freezer paper technique for the heart applique. I then appliqued the heart to the centre of the plate to finish the block. I now have to give some thought to the sashing and cornerstone colour. A lot depends on how much fabric I have left of my "secret sister's" fabric. We'll see what transpires.

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