CQG Dresden Days -- Day 4

How can it be possible that we've only worked on this quilt as a group for FOUR days!?

We've worked together on quilts for four months and not made this much progress!

That is a completed quilt top! And there's a completed back!

In fact, three of the gals were beginning to pin together this quilt sandwich when I had to leave.

Group, we've done amazing work -- and fast!

It looks like one long, skinny quilt -- but by the math it's about 55 inches wide (a full size quilt is suggested to be 54 inches wide). It should also be around 87-90 inches long -- which is a little longer than it should be (a full should be around 75 - 90 depending on your preference).

For quilting, this one is going home with one of the other quilters to await some attention. I suspect waiting for this one to get to the top of her 'to quilt' pile might be the most time consuming part of the entire project.

Once it is quilted, I think it is headed back to me for binding and washing. And I'd like to get some photos of it in a better setting... Anyone have a full-sized bed I can borrow? Then again, depending on the time of year, this one might look nice draped out a barn window...

CQG Dresden Days -- Day 3

We had a marvelous meet last night. Although not everyone was able to make it, we were able to make a huge amount of progress on our Dresden Plate quilt.

We split up the remaining tasks last night, so while some people worked on cutting sashing, others were making the binding, working on the few remaining blocks, and beginning to piece together the top.

I finished up my last plate block -- which means we're just waiting on two more to make it back to group. I struggled more this time around than ever before -- but it eventually worked out!

By the end of the night, the back was partially made, binding ready for use, and the top is nearly completed!

How great does it look!? For fabrics that were no one's favorites, the result is looking amazing so far!

There's one more row of 3 plate blocks to attach, and there will be borders added to the two long sides of the top.

The goal for next meet up is to finish the top and get started on basting. If we're really with it, it would be idea to start quilting.

Since I was waiting to get a photo of the top at the end of the night, I even had a few minutes to work on a project of my own. Welcome first photo of my Ombre quilt project!

It's not much to see yet, but I'll be working on cutting these blocks into something prettier over the next few days and hope to be back with an update soon!

We also had a little unofficial vote and chose the next group project -- something I'm super excited to get started on too! I'd call that a great night!

CQG Dresden Days: Day 1

This month, and honestly, for the next couple months since we're lucky to meet 5 hours a month, my local quilting group is working on a Dresden Plate quilt. 

After picking fabric and cutting over 300 blades, last night was our first chance to sit down and work on piecing. Following a very simplified tutorial based on the amazing and picture heavy tutorial by Amy Gibson at StitcheryDickeryDock, the four of us who braved the ice were able to make five Dresden Plates in about two hours. Four of the five are completely appliqued to our background fabrics, and the fifth is partly done. 

Considering we previously had little to no experience with Dresden Plates or applique, I think that's great progress. 

Only about ten more blocks to go. The goal is to sash our 15 blocks into a twin size quilt. That part should be fairly easy. Quilting it all -- including some kind of pattern on the petals of each plate -- on domestic machines will be the challenging part... but we'll face that bridge when we get there! 

Dresden / Butterfly top preview

Thanks to the quilt group time (in June), I managed not only to finish the fourth butterfly needed to round out the Dresden quilt, but I even pieced them into the larger blocks I needed -- and placed things together for a preview of the top!

I had just enough background fabric to piece the approximately 5 inch butterfly blocks into two 12 inch blocks.

The two butterflies closest to the Dresden plate are made from fabric pulled directly from the plates / scraps that came with the quilt. The two farther removed butterflies are partly (orange) or all (green/black) pulled from my scrap stash.

Since I had a little bit of extra time -- and not much desire to start on another project in that little bit of time -- I started practicing my planned layout:

I had thought to put the butterfly sets in the center (as shown above) but all the feedback I've gotten says to move it to the top row. I have a while to think about it, but I'm leaning towards not listening. I like it how it is now.

Right now, finished size is on goal to be around 40 - 42 inch square. I like it, but it feels just a little small. Then again, not all babies are the size of mine! Still, I'm debating adding a thin brown then a thick yellow border just to add 3 - 5 inches before the dark brown trim. I think the best option is to finish the top as designed above, then I can make the determination on adding extra borders once I see the real top.

On the other hand, I love the way it looks right now, and I really don't want to mess with it further.

Do I always end up in these kinds of situations? I think I usually do. Must be one of the reasons most people who quilt plan first and piece later...

I'm so nervous about adding those 4 little brown blocks. The quilt needs them, but those kinds of elements are exactly where my accuracy (or lack of) usually becomes incredibly obvious. But there's only 4 of them. Surely I can keep it together for that long!

Inherited Dresden Plate Quilt

Out of all the options I could come up with for the two extra blocks needed to finish the top of the Dresden Plate quilt I've picked up, I finally chose to go with paper pieced butterflies.

It gives me a chance to dig through my scrap containers -- thankfully organized by color -- as well as trying to pull from the coordinating scraps I received with the quilt blocks.

I love paper piecing, but I am not particularly fast at it. My husband was kind enough to give me almost two hours of baby free time so I was able to finish my first of (probably) four butterflies.

This is my first try at Lillyella's wonderful free butterfly charm blocks. Although there are three different patterns available, I've chosen to do multiples of the Pepper pattern. Although I had made this particular butterfly in a hope to coordinate with the Dresden plates, it is far, far too bright lemony a yellow and simply does not work. So, I'm sure it'll come back as something else cute later, but not with this particular quilt.

I'm thinking one in yellow, one in oranges, one in tan, and one in green. I'd like to do some pinks or blues, but I'm trying to stick near the palette given in the Dresden blocks.

The (new) yellow butterfly will use the golden/yellow from the plates and the future border, as well as some of the tan-ish fabrics from the plates. The tan butterfly will also use at least some of the fabric straight from these scraps. I have hopes to use the dark brown fabric from the plates with two new oranges for the orange butterfly -- and hopefully I can find some really coordinating oranges! The green will be pulled completely from scrap, so it will be the least matchy-matchy of the set.

I can't wait to see how this turns out!

Another Inherited Quilt

I can't tell you how many 'inherited' projects I've picked up so far this year -- and there may be a lot more to come from what I hear. I figure I'll have several to pull out in the future, but I've got a couple I want to work on right away. These tend to be the larger ones, or the ones where what to do with them is more obvious. Some of the other projects are just enough blocks that I can't justify doing nothing with them, but not enough to easily turn into anything without me making more blocks of the same style.

After checking to see that my initial guess on who 'needed' this top were wrong, I've got a new intended recipient in mind (assuming she turns out to be a she-- or even turns out at all since I'm jumping the gun just a little bit here!) and I'm so much more excited about working on this one.

Fortunately, whatever the plan was with this particular top when it was started, coordinating fabrics were kept with it, so I'm close to ready to build a top already!

Unfortunately, there are only 7 of the Dresden plate blocks. I can't imagine what was going to be done with seven, so perhaps theysimply didn't get finished. But I haven't any more fabric to make more that match... not even of the plain background they are hand stitched onto.

I'm feeling the floral print (I'd call them black eyed susans) as the backing, and I've already cut the yellow into sashing and borders. I'm thinking the dark brown will be binding, and maybe a detail in the sashing if I'm detail oriented enough.

But two additional blocks? That has me a bit stumped at the moment. Well, while I stumble along looking for inspiration, I'm pinning ideas away here.  Hopefully I'll stumble across something I like, but in the meantime, at least I've got some ideas on sashing and other details between here and a finished quilt!