Dresden Plates!

I have a new obsession thanks to my quilting friends!  Dresden Plates!  They are so addictive and fun to make, so consider yourself warned!   I recently purchased a fat quarter bundle of the JOL fabric, a Moda collection by Northern Quilter.  I fell in love with the red, grey, brown colour palette, and the snowflake and reindeer prints just called to me!  I wanted to make something special with the fabrics and Dresden's seemed to fit that well.  I figured I could make 20 blocks using the ten of the 12 fabrics in the bundle.  I removed the two white pieces as I knew I wanted the background to be white.

I used the Easy Dresden Ruler by Darlene Zimmerman.  I did a practice to test out the ruler and used 5” strips.  I had some scraps of Little Black Dress fabrics and the sample turned out great!

I liked how it went together and the final size using 5” strips so cut into my JOL fabric and started sewing. Each Dresden has two repeats of the same fabric as there are 10 fabrics and 20 blades.

Once all the Dresdens were put together I used the Blanket Stitch on my sewing machine to applique the Dresden to the 14 1/2” background square.  I decided to use white thread so you don’t see the travel stitch in the background and it looks hand appliqued.

I had just recently used brown Essex Linen on my wallet and had enough left over to use it in the center of the Dresden. The colour was perfect.  I hand appliqued the centres using the freezer paper method.

I have a few more to make and then I will sash it with more brown Essex Linen as I purchase more last week!

This time of year just after the lake freezes we commonly get large hoar frost crystals appear on the lake.  They grow very well on the areas of ice that I sweep off.  I was pleasantly surprised to find my ice rink covered in the crystals this morning.

It was –25’c this morning with a –33’c windchill.  The ice on the lake was cracking so loud last night, I really enjoy that sound, it means winter is here!  Oh and when I peeked out my window at 1am the northern lights were dancing across the sky!  I hope to get some pictures soon as they are suppose to be active all week.   But I’m not running outside at 1am in this cold!