Broken Plate

I actually DID break a plate this week. At least it was one that I already had chipped too! I was still bummed though. I have a collection of Sue Zipkin's Sango Sweet Shop plates. I love the whimsy. I will have to keep an extra eye out for more pieces at the thrift stores again.

I also worked on the fabric choices for my Dresden Plate Project blocks. I think I am going to go with this red and green snowflake print. I need to decide soon so I can get one block made, if not six!

Last month I missed my quilt guild meeting. It is coming up again tomorrow night. I have all those donation quilts to quilt and hadn't touched them when I got them TWO MONTHS ago! BAD ME! I had to have at least one quilt for tomorrow night, so I quilted the Sherbet quilt. I will take photos before taking it in with me tomorrow night.

I got a start on one of the larger donation quilts. I doubt I will get that done in time for tomorrow night's meeting though. Here it is, under the close supervision of Sweetie! You never know. I only have Yoga classes to teach tomorrow morning. I just might get this second quilt quilted. I won't give up just yet.

That's it for today. I hope you had a wonderful weekend! Happy sewing y'all!

Breaking a plate

We took an unexpected 26 hour, marathon driving, trip over the weekend, so I didn't get my blog posting done on Sunday, like I had planned. All is well, but sometimes life happens!

I did manage to finish one of two of the "My Favorite Things" blocks for the month of May. This one is a birthday cake:

It is a red velvet cake with sprinkles on the frosting...in case you couldn't tell.

I managed to pull some fabrics to audition for the Dresden Plate Project. I was going to do a Christmas theme. As I pulled out the colors I came across six circles of fabric from a quilt I made a long long time ago. The fabric was of various Charles Shultz cartoons of Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, etc. I thought that they would make a very cute center for the plates.

When I started putting fabrics around these centers though, I could tell they didn't go along with the circles. The feel of the whole thing was off. I still like the idea of making a holiday throw quilt instead of a bed sized holiday quilt though. I will try to audition some other colors that might work.

If that fails, perhaps I can find some fabrics from The Fat Quarter Shop. Why there? Well, besides being a really neat shop, I won a drawing for a $25 gift certificate!!! Cindy of Quilt Doodle Doodles runs the "My Favorite Things" BOM and has a drawing each month for those of us participating. Thank you Cindy and The Fat Quarter Shop!

That's it for now. Until next time, happy sewing y'all!

Filling my plate

Oh my, what a weekend it has been! I really thought I was going to spend a LOT more time in the studio this weekend. I was thinking about playing there. Every time I walked to my computer the path led me by fabrics and templates and such. That is not quite the same, is it?

SO, on with this posting.....if you are thinking about joining Frances and I by doing a Dresden Plate block, you might be wondering about what pattern to use or the fabric theme. There is a lot of leeway when choosing both!

I am going to assume you have a pattern of your own to use. I am going to use one I found on EQ7. You can find lots and lots of free patterns online. It really is a simple block. You can have rounded edges or pointed ones. The pointed ones look easier but it can be deceiving. To have that point centered at the end of the 'blade' of your piece takes a bit of finesse.

After you pick your method, you might be wondering about a theme. Do you want to make it with old fashioned fabrics? That quilt will look quite homey and sweet. Perhaps you want to be more dramatic and use batiks or jewel tone colors? Will you use a white background, a black background, or a totally different color? Might you be really different and use a printed background and solid colored blades? Each choice will really affect the outcome.

You might consider a theme using a holiday such as Christmas or Halloween. Or perhaps making it all black and white would be interesting? You could also make 12 blocks, each with a theme of the month, such as red, white, and blue for July. Other months could have color coded themes too.

I have chosen to use a neutral holiday print and make a Christmas quilt. At least that is the plan. I pulled the background fabric but I haven't dug out my holiday prints to be sure I have enough colors that play nice together.

DO take some time to think about the look you want to achieve. If you cannot make up your mind, why not just make a bunch of different themed blocks for a really scrappy quilt! You could even use different pattern styles to make different plates! The sky is the limit!!!

DRESDEN PLATE PROJECT DIRECTIONS:
I kept the “Dresden Plate Project – quilt-along” really simple. From now until December 10th, make a Dresden Plate block and share it on the flickr group page:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/2840531@N23/

That is it, just make ONE. Now of course if you do the pace of a few blocks a month, I would hope to see at least a quilt top done by December!

I hope to do one blog posting a week that talks about DPP too. Thanks Frances, for ‘advertising’ this! Perhaps later in the year, I will get some prizes for folks who are playing along!!!

That is it for today. I apologize for no photos. Maybe next week I will have some. Until then ---

Happy Sewing Y'all!