Finished Quilt for The Middle

Can I just start off by saying that I am so glad I finally finished this quilt?! I started this one two years ago. Normally, I'd say that's okay, but for this quilt it was way too long. A lot can happen in two years. The Middle has changed a lot; going from two to four (almost five) will do that. Thankfully, though, she still likes how her quilt turned out and I like that I could finally check it off my list.



When I first drafted this quilt design, I had just finished a baby quilt using Elizabeth Hartman's Mixtape pattern for a friend. I had also just made Cherie's bee block using the Fat Cat dresden ruler. When I asked The Middle her opinion about her quilt, she said she wanted flowers. She chose this stack of Rainy Days and Mondays fabric that I'd had for a while and I thought the dresdens would make cute quasi flowers/umbrella tops. I love using graph paper to plan out new quilt ideas - it takes me back to my days of hand-drafting floor plans in my interior design classes - so when I merged these two ideas together, this is what I came up with.

The dresdens are machine appliqued onto Kona white. The sashing is a quilter's solid medium gray that I picked up from Joann's. The binding is the pink/red/green raindrop print from the Rainy Days and Mondays line, and the backing is just a solid pink flat sheet that I got from Target. I quilted the entire quilt in meandering loops. The quilt is a twin size, measuring 72" x 90" before washing.

Quilt Tops a Long Time in the Works

In 2012, I jumped on the Granny Squares bandwagon. I love the quilts that came out of that craze and didn't have the self control to not start my own. I pulled out my scraps and cut squares for several blocks. But, like a lot of things on my sewing plate, I let this one sit for a while. Once I pieced all the blocks, I didn't like the traditional layout, I think because of the scraps I had used. I played around with them and decided to mimic the Granny Square block itself.



I plan to add another white border to make it bigger so it's more useful for us, but thought I'd post about it since it's been in the works for so long. I have eight more blocks that I'll be piecing into a simple baby quilt too.

This next quilt top is one that I started way back when The Middle was two and I was pregnant with the baby. Now she's almost five. She picked the fabrics (Rainy Days and Mondays by Melimba and Beccabury for Riley Blake) and wanted the "flowers" (dresdens) so this is the design I came up with. I combined Elizabeth Hartman's Mixtape pattern with the fat cat dresden plates and sashed the blocks in a medium gray. Since this quilt top is intended for her bed, I'll probably just buy a flat sheet (in pink per The Middle's request) for the backing, and be done with it.

EZ Dresden Tutorial and Giveaway - Color Cog Mini Quilt

***This giveaway is now closed.***

Welcome blog hoppers! I hope you're enjoying the blog hop as much as I am. There have been so many tutorials that have had me thinking, Why didn't I come up with that?! and I didn't know the ruler could do that!

For my tutorial, I'm going to show you how to put together a staggered, strip-pieced dresden like my Color Cog mini quilt.

Since the EZ Dresden ruler requires 20 blades to make a full circle, and since there are 12 colors in the traditional color wheel, you'll need to omit two colors (four blades) to achieve a full circle. (I left out blue-purple and I combined yellow with yellow-orange.)

Start by cutting at least six strips that measure 1.5" x 5" for each color. This will yield two blades. You can have anywhere from two to six different fabrics. (I varied between four and six.) You'll also need a background piece that measures 3.5" x 5" for each color, so a total of 10 rectangles. I used Kona white. The image below shows only four colored strips, so just pretend there are six strips shown.

Layout your strips in an order that is pleasing to you.

Piece the strips together and press the seams open or to the side. I found that pressing them open helped since there are so many pieces in this mini quilt.

Next, take your EZ Dresden ruler and line up the top of the ruler with one end of your pieced strips near the left edge if you're right-handed or near the right edge if you're left-handed.

With your rotary cutter, make a cut on the side with the greater amount of fabric outside the ruler. Then cut on the other side.

Turn your ruler around and line up the opposite end of your pieced strips with the 5" mark on your ruler. Cut the remaining side and the bottom (narrow) edge.

You should now have two sizes of blades. Repeat the previous steps for all your colors. You should now have 20 blades, 10 of each size.

Now, take your smaller blade and your 3.5" x 5" background piece and lay them right sides together as shown below, off-setting about a half inch of the background fabric.

Stitch along the longer edge and press your seams open. Repeat with your nine remaining smaller blades.

Lay your ruler on your smaller blade, aligning the narrow end of the ruler with the smaller end of your pieced strip. The pieced strip and the ruler should match up pretty well end-to-end.

Cut on either sides of the background piece to get your 8" blade.

Take the leftover background piece from the previous step and place the wider edge along the narrow edge of your longer blade, right sides together.

Stitch in place and then press your seam open.

Place your ruler on top of your fabric, making sure to align them correctly. Trim the excess. Repeat with your nine remaining longer blades.

Now place the longer blade and the shorter blade side by side, matching the second to bottom colored fabric on the long blade with the second to top fabric on the short blade.

Lay all your blades side by side to create your dresden circle.

At this point, you have a couple options for piecing your dresden. If you want to use set-in seams (requiring you to piece the curve), separate your dresden circle into quadrants and piece each quadrant.

If you don't want to piece the curve, but you want a finished outer edge before appliqueing your dresden to another piece of fabric, you can either make traditional dresden plate points, or you can use Lee's fantastic idea and press the outer edge under before piecing the blades. (I wish I had thought of this!) I pieced my entire dresden, then turned and pressed the outer edge under, and appliqued it to my background fabric (Kona white). I also added another appliqued circle to cover the raw-edged circle of the dresden.

Once you've attached your dresden to your larger background fabric, you can baste it and quilt it however you like. I hand quilted around the perimeter of the cog design as well as in the center circle. Then I used white thread to free-motion quilt by machine in the background.

I also quilted in the ditch of each blade for a little more security.

Once everything is quilted the way you'd like it to be, attach your binding. I used a rainbow stripe from the Remix line from Robert Kaufman to reinforce the color wheel theme.

And there you have it. A finished color cog mini quilt.

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and that it's given you some more ideas of ways to use the EZ Dresden ruler. If you'd like a chance to win one of your own, leave a comment. I'll draw a winner on Wednesday, June 13.

Also, make sure to visit the other bloggers. You can see a list of the schedule here.

Practice Bee Block Turned Pillow

Remember this practice dresden plate block I made back in January?



I didn't know what to do with it because the colors don't really match any decor in my house. My mom-in-law made a comment that it reminded her of a quilt from her childhood made out of old clothes. I asked her if she wanted me to make a pillow or wall quilt for her. She chose a pillow.



I had a 20" pillow form and the dresden plate fit pretty well on a 19.5" square of Kona white (I like my pillow covers fitting snugly on the pillow form so I make them 1-2 inches smaller).



For the back, I used a single print from the front to make an envelope closure, which is my go-to pillow closure. I'm not sure I'll branch out of that anytime soon.



Linking up to:

I'm really starting to hate this winter light for taking photos.

The mister has complained year after year about how much he hates the winter months for photography. I didn't really understand what he meant until this year. In the early summer, he showed me how to use his Nikon and I think I got the hang of taking decent pictures outside so I could photograph my quilts and other projects. But now that the weather has changed and the light has gotten darker (the snow doesn't help either), I'm finding myself resorting to taking pictures inside with the flash. Plus, I've had a killer cold the last few days so my laziness has won out in the photography department. Anyway, that's why the following photos aren't that great.

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I'm in my first virtual quilting bee this year, the Sew Beautiful Bee. January is Cherie's month and she requested Dresden Plates. I hadn't made them before and opted to make a practice block to make sure I got everything right. I haven't decided what I'll be doing with this block. Kati had a great idea of keeping all the practice blocks for each month and then putting them together in a sampler quilt. I really like that idea, but I used leftovers from the baby quilt I finished yesterday so I'm not sure how well it will blend, color-wise, with the other practice blocks I make. I've toyed with the idea of turning this into a mini quilt for My Favorite Little Quilt Swap, which is currently in its second round. (The deadline is January 31.) Or, I can always turn it into a pillow or something to go along with the baby quilt. I dunno. We'll see.



Here's Cherie's finished block, using Soul Blossoms. I ended up using a blanket stitch to attach the flower to the background fabric and wish that I would have just used a straight stitch. I used a straight stitch on the circle and like how that looks better than the blanket stitch.



I've been anxious to finish my Far Far Away 2 Kitchen Windows quilt. I got all the pieces cut and the blocks laid out.



I decided to use Kona white for the window panes because I think it adds enough contrast to the muted color palate of the FFA2 fabrics. I really like how Ashley at Film in the Fridge used white to frame her FFA2 quilt and opted for the same contrast in mine. I also saw Lee's Lattice quilt today and I'm really thinking of scrapping the Kona ivory I was planning on using as the sashing and getting some Kona stone instead.





Two blocks down, 23 to go.

My Favorite Little Quilt Swap Received

The last of my swap packages arrived in the mail yesterday. For this swap, I didn't know what quilt I'd end up getting. I was really happy to see this one when I opened the package. Jessica (Euphoria on Flickr) made this cute little dresden plate quilt. I haven't seen one of these in real life, so it's been fun to look at and understand the construction behind it.



(Thanks, Jessica, for letting me use your photos. I haven't had a chance to take my own pictures yet.)



I haven't decided where its home will be yet, but I'm happy that it's mine.