Dresden Plate Baby Quilt

Another granddaughter arrived last April, giving me reason to make a baby quilt. I selected fabric and a pattern months earlier. I turned to Scrap Quilts magazine, Summer 2012. My sisters and I created tangerine zoo designed by Brandi Frey one other time to commemorate the birth of a great-niece. See previous quilt here.

I selected the fabrics for my granddaughter’s baby quilt on a retreat shopping trip. ABC XYZ by Moda with animals to fussy-cut for the plate centers was perfect. I purchased the entire fat quarter bundle along with enough coordinating fabric for background blocks and borders. I added Bella Solids in blue, green, and yellow to match.

ABC XYZ fat quarter bundle by Moda Fabrics

I began by tracing a circle template onto the backing of fusible interfacing. These pieces were placed over the animals on the front of the fabric, stitched on the traced line, and cut out with a seam allowance. Notches around the circle’s edge and slits in the interfacing allowed the circles to be easily turned right side out. The circles will fuse to the block center.

Fussy-cut animals for center of Dresden plate

I cut the wedges using freezer paper templates, a ruler, and rotary cutter. Following the instructions, the wedges are stitched across the top and turned right side out to create a point. Ten wedges sewn together form the plate with a finished top edge ready for stitching to the background with a blanket stitch.

Dresden plate wedges

Wedge layout

This weekend, I finally had time to stitch the wedges together. I’ve stitched together 22 plates and have 5 to finish. Yes, that sounds like a lot of blocks for a baby quilt. I am actually making three. I have a great-nephew and a great-niece born in the last year. They each will receive a baby quilt at Christmas. Rather than making three different quilts, I decided to make all of them the same with different colored centers – green, blue, or yellow.

Wedges waiting to be pressed

Block with plate center

I just need to make time to appliqué the Dresden’s to the background squares. As noted earlier, I plan to use a blanket stitch. Still plenty of time to complete the baby quilts before Christmas.

Happy Stitching!

Dresdan Zoo Baby Quilt

My two sisters and I collaborated on another baby quilt to commemorate the birth of our great-niece. Even though we live close to one another, it can be challenging to work on a project together. We each have our own activities and projects on which to work. But, we break the project down into manageable tasks.

I love making baby quilts and found a cute pattern, Tangerine Zoo, designed by Brandi Frey, in Fons & Porter’s Scrap Quilts Summer 2012. The quilt has nine Dresdan plate blocks with fussy cut zoo animal patches in the center. The pattern used a fabric with an orange background, thus the name “Tangerine” Zoo. I had a fabric with zoo animals in a light green color. We each contributed bright colored fat quarters from our stash to audition. After selecting fabrics, my oldest sister & I took them home to cut out and stitch up the Dresdan plates.

About every month or so, we get together to sew and used this time to work on the Dresdan Zoo quilt. Some of you may have followed the progress in previous blog posts HERE, HERE, and HERE. At this time, I was taking a class on Craftsy on how to make creative quilt backs by Elizabeth Hartman. I used this information to make the quilt back and posted about it HERE. The quilt was now ready for the final quilting stitches.

Enter my younger sister, who has recently begun quilting and taken a fancy for machine quilting. She has always been creative and enjoyed drawing. To her, free motion quilting (FMQ) is like drawing on fabric. She is the resident quilter for our collaboration quilts, but was in the process of quilting two other quilts for her grandchildren. That left the quilt in limbo for several months.

Last month, she finished the quilting and the binding was added. Today, I am adding the quilt label. The sunshine was bright and the weather beautiful, so I spent time outside snapping photographs to document our second quilt collaboration. Here are several different angles and close-ups for you to enjoy.

Dresdan Zoo Baby Quilt

A sidelong view of the quilt

Close-up of blocks

Alligator Block

Hippo Block

Pieced Back

Close-up of Quilting from Back

Dresdan Zoo on Rail

The quilt will be sent off to our niece in California, who is not expecting it. But, her brother was the recipient of our first baby quilt collaboration, so it will be a nice surprise when she receives it.

Next up…a bowtie baby quilt for my nephew, my oldest sister’s son. He has a baby son born earlier this summer. We’ve already sewn together the blocks and laid them out in a pattern. My older sister and I are going on a retreat next week-end, where we will finish stitching the blocks together. Then, off to my baby sister for the final quilting touches. And…there’s a wedding on the horizon, so we’ve been talking about collaborating on a wedding quilt.

Happy Quilting!

P.S. I’d love to hear what you think of the photography. I am not a professional, not by a long shot. But, I have been reading up on photography, took a lecture at AQS Grand Rapids, listened to a photography webinar, and had a lengthy conversation with a photographer friend at work. I have been playing around with my digital camera settings and feel that these pictures show the colors of the quilt well. I even think I implemented the rule of thirds into the shots. I’d love to hear your feedback.

Dresdan Zoo Baby Quilt Update

My older sister and I worked on our Dresdan Zoo Baby Quilt for our niece, on Saturday morning. We have been making steady progress on this quilt for several months. The quilt is a collaboration between my two sisters and I for our great-niece Isabella, born in January. She is our oldest brother’s second grandchild and we collaborated on a quilt for the first grandchild last year.

Each month, we plan a sister’s sewing day, which I have began blogging about HERE. This month, we only had a morning to work on a project, so we used it to stitch the Dresdan blocks together. Since the points on the Dresdan blocks touched and did not match up well, we decided to add a 2-inch sashing strip between the blocks. A border of the purple stripe fabric is the next addition, along with white corner squares. Then, on to the FMQ that my youngest sister should complete. She’s the expert quilter of the three of us.

Dresdan Zoo Quilt

Here is a closeup of the center Alligator block.

Dresdan Alligator Block

Finally, here is a peek at the border fabric lying next to the quilt.

Zoo Quilt Border Fabric View

Do you get together regularly with someone to quilt? I participate in lots of quilt groups. But, I enjoy my sewing with my two sisters the most.

Happy Stitching!

Dresdan Zoo Baby Quilt

My sisters and I got together over the week-end to work on the baby quilt, Dresdan Zoo, we are making for our niece. We collaborated on another baby quilt, Touch & Feel Baby Quilt, that we gifted to a nephew last year. We completed the Dresdans last month & got together on Saturday to stitch them to the background blocks. I enjoy hand applique and decided to hand stitch the fussy-cut zoo animal centers. Four of the blocks are completed: an elephant, giraffe, zebra, and turtles.

Completed Dresdan Zoo blocks

The Dresdan pattern is straight across the top, so that it can be machine stitched to form the point. After turning the point, the sides are stitched together to from the ring – no raw edges and completely machine stitched. These were then centered onto the background fabrics and blanket stitched along the outside edge of the Dresdans using a beige Aurifil thread. A stabilizer on the back kept the background from puckering. I like to use tissue paper for a stabilizer. It’s inexpensive, especially since I save it from gifts I’ve received.

These blocks have been easy & fun to stitch together. Only five more blocks to complete and we can stitch the quilt together. FMQ to follow.

Hope you’re staying warm in this cold weather. Happy Stitching!