SPIRAL: DARE TO DRESDEN

Sunday, January 27, 2013

DARE TO DRESDEN

Finally I can show you what I've been working on recently for the DARE TO DRESDEN bloghop. This bloghop was the nudge I needed to try something that's been on my **Hmmm, That Looks Interesting** list for ages: dresden wedges done in segments.

I used the tutorial at Lurline's Place and everything worked perfectly -- an excellent tutorial!! The step-by-step photos are all there, so I won't need to repeat them here. Lurline's arithmetic is spot on -- my pieces nestled together and lined right up. It took me a pleasant afternoon of concentration to choose each fabric's placement, cut it and sew it together, so this whole "plate" was done in one session. And when it was done, the circle was flat, which is not always the case with Dresden projects! A few evenings of buttonholing and hand quilting later, and I'm happy with the results of this try-it-out project. I'd definitely consider doing a whole quilt this way someday!

Dresden Plate quilts hold a particular place in quilt history, and they were especially popular during the Depression. You can read more about them here.

It's dreary gray winter here now, but I'm looking forward to next summer, when I will be using this table topper out on the back porch and admiring the sunflowers that have been planted in my garden by the birds and chipmunks!

And now that I have the sunflower dresden experiment out of my system, I can go back to my real Dresden project, these wreaths I started last autumn. 'Cause there are only eleven months until Christmas :)