Dare to Dresden - Day 5

Welcome to England and thanks for stopping by! Make yourself comfortable while I share with you my Dresden adaptation.

But before I share with you what I have made for the blog hop, I have a little confession to make. I signed up for the blog hop early in January (while still away on holidays actually and dutifully added the button to the side of my blog). Christine of Quilt Monster in my Closet sent us an email with the plan for the hop and guided us through it around mid-January and then on Monday, she sent us this nice little reminder about our forthcoming spot on the hop. This is when I went into panic mode. I had all the best laid plans and was going to make my Dresden at the week-end ready to be blogged about before tonight.... apart that I completely forgot about it at the week-end and shortened a pair of curtains for Mr Cars instead. I had an idea of how I wanted to play with the blades since I signed up but I hadn't started to play yet... And yesterday I was out all evening because I was invited to a function at one of my neighbour. So there was tonight left to experiment and hope for the best and I was determined that I would have made my block and blogged about it before going to bed...
Nothing better than a tight deadline in life to get going. So thank you very much Christine for keeping me on my toes and reminding me that you were looking forward to my Dresden, I hope I live up to your expectations. I think that without your reminder email on Monday I would have missed the spot completely!

As I said I had an idea of how I wanted to play with my blades but up until tonight, it was "just an idea". I had made Dresden plates before so I wanted to experiment a little bit this time. Today hasn't been a particularly good day so I needed cheering up to unwind! I thought that a palette of pink would work well to that effect so I delved into my "pink" box to find an assortment of fabric to cut blades out off.
To make the blades, I used the easy and fast piecing method where the initial shape is a tumbler

that is folded in half and sewn across the top

before turning over to form the Dresden blades.

 When ironing the seam is aligned with the fold to get a lovely symmetrical blade.

And then instead of sewing my blades in a circular motion, I attached them to form a wavy pattern by alternating the blades in a more or less random fashion.

When I sew the blades together, I turned a tiny seam allowance under at the base of the blade so I didn't have a raw edge when I applique on the background.

I used a small stitch length (1.8) to applique my wave with a lovely bright pink thread that I received from my childminder when she cleared her Mum's house. A very special thread for a special project.

Well this little exercise has certainly taken my mind off other issues and I like how my block has turned out (if I can say so myself!) I will use it in my sampler quilt.

I might even make more for my fellow bees for the 4x5 Modern Quilt bee if they like it. Watch this space!

If you want a tutorial of how to make the blades with the same method, you can look up here. I didn't use a wedge ruler to cut my blade (as I don't have one! a very good reason not to use one I guess) but I drew mine on paper.

Well I hope you have enjoyed your visit and my take on Dresden. Now don't forget to hop over to my fellow "daring to Dresden" bloggers! Hope you have fun and try to play with Dresden in the near future too, if you haven't already been tempted.
Celine

Charlotte H @ “that Other Blog”

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