I’m Seeing RED!

And…..No, I am not mad!!

When I posted yesterday about making an optical illusion quilt, I started remembering one that I made as part of a guild challenge back in 2000. We picked color swatches out of a hat and my color was RRRREEEEDDDD!!!

I had wanted to try an optical illusion quilt and found a great pattern in this book that just happened to be on my shelf…..

Sadly, this book is now out of press!

This is the quilt that I made…..

It was amazingly easy to make, but I did have to be EXTREMELY precise in my cutting and piecing.

Since most illusions are made with straight lines they do lend themselves to fun quilt designs.

I did a bit of research for books and found these…..

Now what I REALLY want to do is to design one myself so it may be a while before I get one made.

But I can always dream!!

And, truth be known, my TRUE desire is to make something like this…..

Have you made an optical illusion quilt?? Did you enjoy it??

One of my favorite things about quilting is to motivate others and help them in their quilting journey. As part of this endeavor, I LOVE to present programs and workshops to groups and guilds around the world. All of my programs work well with Zoom meetings and I would love to speak to your group.

You can find out more at this link…..

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Dresden Variations…..

Yesterday I posted about my initial foray into making Dresden Plates….

And while I enjoyed making them, I didn’t want EVERY plate to look exactly the same…..

Since I want these to look like flowers, my first thought was to round out the corners.

I accomplished this by drawing the rounded version onto lightweight interfacing…

I placed each one of these on top of the “ray”…..

……. and sewed around it…..

Then I turned it, leaving this, slightly uneven, Dresden ray…..

No….it’s not perfect….but neither are flowers!!!

This is the final plate…..

I LIKE IT!!

My other thought was to make a set of plates where the background fabric was used in half of the rays so that it basically disappears.

For this one, I chose to NOT make the points of the rays.

My first step was to cut and sew the pairs of fabrics…..

When pieced it looked like this…..

Now I needed to finish the edges, so I placed a piece of interfacing over the circle and sewed around it……

After a quick turn…..

…..and I have a circular plate….

The question will be whether or not I can quilt it so that the background fabrics basically disappear…..

It looks promising……stay tuned!!!

I will get back to this piece on Thursday, showing you some REALLY fun Grid Quilting, but between now and then, I have a great quote, some inspiration and ideas for a great gift for your quilting friends…….

Stay tuned!!!

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Have you made Dresden Plates?

I have recently become enamored with the Dresden Plate design and decided that it would be a perfect pattern for my guild challenge (due this Tuesday)!!

I had never made Dresden Plates before so decided to make a video to help myself learn as well as teach those who are interested.

They are amazingly easy to make so please enjoy……

If you are reading this via email, follow this link to see the YouTube Video....  https://youtu.be/E6sif4NZcU

After making a few larger Dresden Plate Designs, I pulled out some rulers that I had purchased when I was in Sweden……

The first was the MINI Dresden Plate from SuzN Quilts…..

…..and the second was the TINY Dresden…..

The MINI Version can be purchased HERE

The TINY Version can be purchased HERE

These templates are 30-degree angles, so it only takes 12 spokes to make a full plate.

For the Mini plates, I started with a 3-inch strip……

….while the TINY version started with a 2-inch strip…..

At this point, I was working with some fairly small pieces…..

The TINY template produced a 3-1/4 inch plate…..

But, then I got REALLY crazy and cut them even smaller, cutting the initial strip at 1.5-inches and only using a portion of the TINY template…..

At this stage, I found it too hard to hold the ruler in place, so I drew in the cutting lines and then cut them separately.

Interestingly, as I stitched it together, I only ended up needing 8 of the wedges to complete the plate…..

This one ended up being 1-3/4’s inch in size!!

So small but WAY TOO CUTE!!

Tomorrow I will show you some of the other alterations that I made as I proceeded to piece my Dresden-Plate flower garden!!

If you subscribe to my mailing list, you can receive this free pattern for “Dancing Squares”…..

You can sign up HERE……

While you are at it, why not sign up to be notified of new blog posts as well…..

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Now let’s make SMALLER Dresden Plates….

Yesterday I told you about a new quilt that I have started focusing on the Dresden plate block.

This 9-inch variety was fast and easy…..my two favorite words…..

BUT, could I make them smaller??

I recently purchased these rulers to make smaller plates…..

…and I was excited to try them.

I started with the “Mini” ruler which used a 3.5-inch strip….

Since these wedges are wider (30-degree), only 12 are required to make a plate.

They are also easier to work with because the hole in the middle is built in for you. It didn’t take much time to finish this 7-inch plate…..

Then it was time to try the “TINY” plates.

These started with a 2-inch fabric strip….making for VERY Small wedges….

I was once again worried about turning the points, but my trusty tool worked beautifully…..

….and I quickly had another plate (4-inch) ready to show……

I like the look of the design when all of these sizes are put together…..

What will it become……who knows!!

Tomorrow I will start sharing photos from the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas so PLEASE come back for the show!!

In this blog, I post DAILY stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.

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Let’s make Dresden Plates

As I mentioned in Thursday’s post, I have been thinking about a Dresden Plate quilt.

My fascination started over a year ago when I saw the 22.5-degree wedge ruler from Creative Grids……

….and then watched a YouTube video about how to use it!! Isn’t it amazing what you can learn on YouTube?

Per the instructions, I picked a size to use (5 inches in this case) and cut two strips of coordinating fabric that width…..

I stacked them on top of each other and used the wedge ruler to cut the shapes…..

It was fun to see how they were going to look when pieced….

Now I was off to the machine, starting by folding the wedges in half……

…..and stitching along the wider edge…..

Once I had all 16 sewn…..

…it was time to turn the points……

I was afraid that this might be difficult, but it was fairly easy to do, especially using the pressed center line to line up the seam…..

Once folded and ironed, it was time to match up the sets…..

….stack them one on top of the other, and sew down the long edge…..

Very quickly there were twos….

…..then fours….

…..eights…..

And finally, a full plate…..

Since I was going to cover the center with a circle and didn’t need all of those seams meeting together, I took a pair of scissors and cut it out some…..