KCQuilts Blog

While planning out blocks to add to this quilt, I had an inkling I might like to try a Dresden Plate.  But I wasn’t sure – it was just SO traditional.  Then I saw this fabulous block on Flickr and knew I had to try it.

Never having made a Dresden Plate block before, I did a quick Google search for tutorials.  I found some useful information, but every single tutorial claimed that I needed to go out and buy a special ruler for making Dresden Plate blocks.  I was not about to buy a ruler for a singular quilt block, so out came the graph paper and the compass and the protractor:

Template in hand, I made quick work of the Dresden Plate.  It was so much easier than I had assumed, and super addicting.

If anyone is interested in trying it for themselves, here are some good tutorials:

• Dresden Plate Block Sew-Along
• Blogtoberfest – Dresden Plate Tutorial
• Easy Dresden “Tutorial”

Just keep in mind that, with a little effort, you do not have to buy a special ruler.  Also, these tutorials mainly advocate appliqueing by machine, but I did mine by hand.  One isn’t better than the other, necessarily, but it is nice to know that it can be done either way.

When I started on this sampler quilt, I knew that I wanted a true sampler and I was going to have to use a wide variety of techniques. For these next two blocks, that meant curved piecing. Very scary. It is a lot easier to just cut out a circle and applique it, in my opinion. But then, it doesn’t lay nice and flat, like the curved piecing does.

I drafted the pattern for these blocks with my graph paper and a compass, and made my own templates.  However, all I know about curved piecing I learned from The Modern Quilt Workshop. They may not want to lay claim to me, though, when they see the following blocks.  I think the lesson I learned here is that quarter circles are pulled off a lot more easily than half circles. Observe:

See what I mean? Those half circles are just all wonky.  Not my favorite block.

I fell in love with this pillow when I saw it on Sew Mama Sew’s pillow month.  I knew I just had to give the pattern a try, so I figured out how to do it as a 12″ block and rainbowed it up:

I tried to get the fabric to match up across the seams, but obviously I failed pretty miserably.  I didn’t hate it enough to redo the block though, and quickly moved on to Hexagons:

This was only my second attempt at English Paper Piecing.  I really enjoy sewing by hand, but don’t always enjoy how long it takes.  This block was just the right amount of time (a whole quilt of this would obviously be too much!).  I used this tutorial from The Sometimes Crafter to make the block, because I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel if I didn’t have to.  It was a great tutorial and super easy to follow.  I must admit, I have a little bit of Hexagon love right now.  I might need to applique them onto some little girl clothing to cure myself.

I don’t think I mentioned in previous posts that all the blocks for these two quilts are 12″ finished. That means that all the squares in the above quilt are only 1″ – very tedious work, but super cute result.  There are no repeating fabrics, since I made copious use of my stash of scraps.  There are just some fabrics I love so much that I can’t throw away even the tiniest scrap.  And it’s so nice to see them again – hello friends!

Now in this block, while I did raid the stash, you will see every fabric repeated twice.  That is because I cut all my fabrics into squares before making them into triangles.  It made for much faster piecing, and that was more valuable to me than the uniqueness of each triangle.