June 2018 – Quilting my way through life!

New Patterns Spring 2018, #13

June 30, 2018June 28, 2018 suznquilts

New Pattern #13

is God Bless This HOME.

I started with some green fabric, some perle cotton thread & a Tiny Dresden plate.

With so many options though

come so many opportunities to second guess myself!

& third guess…

When photographing a finished quilt for a pattern cover it makes all the difference in the world sometimes.

As I started stitching I knew the thread color wasn’t right.

What looks good in person, doesn’t always show well in a photograph,

that’s why I’m constantly taking pics to discern my progress.

But maybe the addition of the fused letters would help?

I finished the embroidery even though I was pretty sure this wasn’t “it”.

Maybe changing the Tiny Dresden plate fabric would help.

Or not.

The letters needed to be darker, so I started with my pigma pen.

It helped the letters, but not enough to suit me.

Perhaps another Tiny Dresden plate color would help?

Nope!

I started over using black perle cotton thread.

Much better!

At this point I wasn’t sure if the orphaned Tiny Dresden plate was “it”

or if I just thought it was so I wouldn’t have to make another…

It was “it”.

This one is just too dark.

I don’t remember why, but I made a new plate.

I think I toyed with the idea of making the center dark instead of cream.

And then there were half-square triangles.

Just right!

Meet God Bless This HOME.

Such a long story for not so big a quilt

which by the way is available on my website.

Just 1 more new quilt pattern to show you.

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan

Dresden Plate Quilt, new quilt patterns

New Patterns Spring 2018, #12

June 29, 2018June 27, 2018 suznquilts

New Pattern #12

is BOO.

It’s another (even smaller) little quilt that I made 2 years ago

& has been hanging out in my sewing room among other stuff I was working on or pondering…

It’s so small that I don’t have a lot of “in progress” photos of it either.

Make a “B”, make 2 Tiny Dresden plates & you’re almost done!

Fetch your Thangles & make a handful of little half-square triangles & that’s pretty much it.

Next, pin it onto your dress form & let it collect dust for a couple of years while you work on lots of other stuff.

It was pretty content there, but once I decided it was being made into a pattern this spring

it got moved to a more prominent place.

Just not terribly well photographed…

Meet BOO!

1 B, 2 TD’s & a handful of hst’s & you’re done!

& guess what?

It’s on my website too!

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan

New quilt pattern, Tiny Dresden quilts

New Patterns Spring 2018, #11

June 28, 2018June 27, 2018 suznquilts

New Pattern #11

is My Little Dresden Garden.

It’s another product of the Tiny Dresden/Jelly Roll experiment of January 2018.

Scientific, no. Fun, yes!

After I finished the original intent of the Tiny Dresden plates, Dresden Sundaes,

I had many more half Dresden plates left over.

For the first quilt (there are 3 quilts in this pattern)

I chose some of the red half plates with at least 2 pairs left and used them for the flowers.

These were drying on my kitchen table under the ceiling fan

after I wet them to remove the center paper templates.

Now what background fabric?

Cream withe dots? Black?

Then which green?

Too blue, too dark…

I had to go shopping for “greens”.

Better!

And now which cream background???

I think I got it.

Now to add leaves.

Looking good…

Do I need some grass too?

Nope!

They’re cute just as they are (which is exactly how I designed them).

Why do I waste so much time second guessing myself???

Quilt #2…

Need something in the middle?

Nope! But a cute thought…

With the help of my little pony (LOL.. not sure why Jody had a horse in her quilt shop),

but she ordered the whole New Hope collection,

so, lucky me I was able to go there & choose between all of the reds for my bindings.

BTW, she still had quite a bit of New Hope left when I was there last week, 40%off!

Finally I decided to make the last quilt that was in my head

& in my computer that I designed for the pattern.

It’s soooo little, just 6″ wide,

but soooo cute!

Meet My Little Dresden Garden.

3 quilts, 1 pattern.

All with Tiny Dresden plates.

All on my website.

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan

Dresden Plate Quilt, new quilt patterns, Tiny Dresden quilts

New Patterns Spring 2018, #10

June 27, 2018June 27, 2018 suznquilts

New Pattern #10

is Love you to the Moon.

I love this phrase.

Since creating this pattern, I’m hearing over & over again how lots of moms & grandmas like to tell it to their loved ones.

I made this quilt more than a year & a half ago & it’s been “hanging out” in my sewing room ever since.

Remember seeing it a few new patterns ago?

After I made the quilt I convinced myself that no one would want to waste their time making such a small quilt.

So it hung…

I’ve enjoyed looking at it all this time as well as friends and family members who came visiting my sewing room.

Finally this past winter when I decided to do some smaller little Dresden quilts, I decided to include this orphan quilt.

Like my “Joy to the World” quilt, not many “in progress” photos of this quilt either.

I did ponder the background fabric.

If it’s not going to photograph well there’s no point in proceeding.

Both show the perle cotton thread well, but the lighter fabric won out.

After stitching the words, I next pondered the color of the Tiny Dresden plate.

I wanted to use this one because it was left over from another quilt,

but this version won out.

After all, it’s just 1 measly Tiny Dresden plate for goodness sake!

Add a few Thangles produced half-square triangles, & whalah!

Love you to the Moon.

You betcha, it’s on my website.

Just Keep Sewing… little bitty quilts!

Susan

Dresden Plate Quilt, New quilt pattern, Tiny Dresden quilts

New Patterns Spring 2018, #9

June 26, 2018June 25, 2018 suznquilts

New Pattern #9

is Joy To The World.

It’s such a small quilt that I don’t have many “in progress” photos, darn!

What I do have is an image of the design printed out to scale,

patiently waiting until I had just the right fabrics to proceed.

It’s a pretty fun place to “hang” out…

surrounded by other cute stuff like this bunny, and a new-ish addition to my window sill, a carved wooden green sofa that I assume was in a little girl’s dollhouse at one time.

Finally it came time for Joy To The World to come to life in fabric.

A little perle cotton stitching,

a bit of fusible web applique

& 1 measly Tiny Dresden plate.

One can hardly call it a Dresden plate quilt.

I’m so glad I was piling up finished tops to go to my quilter because I mistakenly thought Joy to the World was finished, not!

What was I thinking???

I hadn’t put any half-square triangles on the outer edges.

Not sure why I didn’t design them on this quilt.

Glad I realized that before I sent it to my quilter.

Also in the meantime,

I was auditioning a set of new hangers that I designed specifically for this quilt.

The above image is the size that I originally designed for it,

but lack of communication & a larger set was made.

As it turns out sometimes (also known as fate?)

I like the larger (below) version better!

Are you familiar with my Dresden Buddies Series?

We introduced those patterns last spring at St. Louis spring market.

I used 2 Victorian hangers on them, one on top & one on bottom.

Because the quilts were so symmetrical, I thought it made sense.

I really like the added weight the bottom hanger gives the quilts

and if you ever hang quilts you know the bottom has a tendency to curl in after an extended period of time.

The second hanger on the bottom alleviates that curling & makes it prettier too!

So, the star on the bottom of my new hanger set.

It’s adds a nice touch and will prevent “Quilt bottom curl”. Lol!

Didn’t Tamara, my machine quilter, do a great job quilting this cutie?

Next, I added the two sleeves for the two hangers and finished the quilt.

BTW, the quilts that I show on hangers, I always provide instructions in my patterns for the sleeves to accommodate the specific hanger I show.

Meet Joy to the World.

And the Manger hanger set.

Both are available on my website.

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan

Dresden Plate Quilt, New quilt pattern, Tiny Dresden quilts

New Patterns Spring 2018, #8

June 25, 2018June 25, 2018 suznquilts

New Pattern #8

is Dresden Sundaes.

It’s my favorite new pattern.

It uses my Tiny Dresden Template.

You’ve seen bits of it here & there on my blog.

It uses Jo Morton’s New Hope Collection by Moda.

It started with my challenge to cut & sew as many Tiny Dresden petals as possible from a jelly roll.

That was fun, but not necessary for the pattern!

After I made all of the petals, I sewed them into half plates

I worked on a lot of this quilt while on a quilt retreat.

Aren’t these scrumdiddlyumptious?

Who knew that was a real word??? Look it up!

Next, I went to work to design the bottom of the blocks.

First I needed to decide on a background fabric.

Ultimately the decision was made to go outside the collection to use a lighter fabric so the baskets would show up much better.

Choosing a center for each half plate was fun.

I have even more fun photographing them.

Can you tell?

I called these baskets from the start of the design.

HOWEVER… my sewing “Friends” (they look in-the-know, huh?)

told me they weren’t baskets, but instead sundae cups.

I got a lot done that weekend.

And so my sundaes grew…

Soon all of the “sundae” blocks were complete.

At this point I thought it needed one more element.

Since there were a few leftover petals…

I put a little bazinga in the corner.

I sewed the rows together.

If you’ve never pieced a quilt “on point”,

it’s just as easy to sew blocks together on point as in horizontal rows.

You just sew the triangles on like they’re another block.

And I always over-size the triangles a bit

so that you can trim them down after they’re sew onto the quilt.

When I finished the top I took if for show & tell at my guild.

Everyone there also saw sundaes so I named it Dresden Sundaes.

Meet Dresden Sundaes.

I’ll have you know that this was my best-selling pattern at spring market.

I’ll also have you know that almost every quilt shop owner that bought the pattern called it my “basket” quilt! Peer pressure…

There are instructions for scalloping the edge of the quilt

& also how to make and sew the bias binding.

Don’t let that scare you.

You can make the edges straight if you prefer.

I also designed this smaller, 8 block version for my pattern tester, Chris.

Perhaps it’s more appealing to you?

All the same pieces to cut & sew, just a lot fewer of them!

Dresden Sundaes is available on my website.

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan

New quilt pattern, Tiny Dresden quilts

New Patterns Spring 2018, #7

June 24, 2018June 20, 2018 suznquilts

New Pattern #7

Love & Dresden Kisses.

This is a fun quilt to make!

Of course you can use just 1 red fabric, I however cannot!

Where is the fun in that?

Once I decided on the reds I needed a background.

It looks like at this point some straightening up was necessary.

I guess I couldn’t find a suitable background in my mess.

It must have been so bad that I needed to photograph it?

I do see shiny wood floor there…

It may or may not look the same today.

This little red star print by Minick & Simpson for Moda was the perfect choice.

It’s from their Snowfall Christmas collection last year.

Next I needed to decide if the reds would actually work.

And would the red plate show up on the charcoal background?

This red one will do.

And now that all the pieces are cut it’s time to sew.

At some point I decided it didn’t need the piano key inner border.

Probably when I decided I’d prefer to start working on Dresden petals instead.

Of course I took a pic of the petal pile!

This reminds me of a line from Madagascar, Lol..

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/c3f1cc07-d66b-47c0-b16e-7f0c077dd59e

A bit of pressing, turning, pressing and voila!

This is where according to my phone’s camera I took a hiatus

& we bought a new van.

12 1/2 years & 251,000 miles later.

It was time!

Notice it’s in the red family too.

Come to think if it, it’s the second “red” van that we’ve bought in February!

Weird!

I also took in an antique mall,

where I often tend to find my entertainment:

But then got back to work.

These quilts don’t design or sew themselves!

The cream dot in the center of the “O” makes me smile.

Meet Dresden Love & Kisses.

My friend, Loraine tested this pattern for me.

(if you find any mistakes that she didn’t it’s her fault.)

She also helped name it for me.

Thanks, Loraine!

A little bit of fusible web applique, a few X’s and a few O’s, but a lot of fun!

You guessed it, it’s on my website.

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan

New quilt pattern, Tiny Dresden quilts

New Patterns Spring 2018, #6

June 23, 2018June 21, 2018 suznquilts

New pattern #6

Star Bright.

I used the new Grunge Seeing Stars collection by Basic Grey for Moda on this quilt.

I showed you many of the steps of its creation back in March.

Tiny Dresden petals, yada, yada, yada…

The pretty petal pile…

Changing out a plate because of the lack of contrast with the center fabric…

Drying the plates…

Choosing just the right Sulky thread colors…

& the magical tiny blind hem stitch.

Then the stars…

& the leftovers of making the stars for the awesome “bonus” border!

The hardest part for me a lot of times is deciding a name for each quilt.

Meet Star Bright!

It’s like a rainbow in itself.

Yup, it’s on my website.

Just Keep Sewing…

Susan

Mini Dresden Patterns, New quilt pattern, Tiny Dresden quilts

New Patterns Spring 2018, #5

June 22, 2018June 21, 2018 suznquilts

New pattern #5 is

“Dresden Daisies”.

This is the only new pattern that uses both my Tiny Dresden and Mini Dresden templates.

I designed this quilt a while back.

I guess was waiting for just the right fabrics to put it together with.

The darker green fabric is from Jo Morton’s “New Hope” collection by Moda.

I’ve used plenty of half Dresden plates in my quilts, but for this one, since it’s going to be appliqued on top of the border and not sewn into it, I had to first press and glue the seam allowances under before adding the center.

To do this, I drew intersecting straight lines on my ironing board cover with an ultra fine Sharpie marker.

This allowed me to place the seam allowance on the vertical line, then press the seam allowances up to the horizontal line.

I’ve done this before with another quilt I was working on that had a lot of 6 1/2″ blocks. It’s a good way to quickly check accuracy before moving on.
Ironing board covers are not permanent.

For instance the one pictured is long gone!

Next I made the centers.

I only appliqued the full plates’ centers.

Since the edge of the half plates’ centers overhang the petals,

they would need to be appliqued down after they were on the border.