Dresden Plates

My friend Catherine is adulting.  She has a real job with a real salary and benefits, is smart and funny, and is an amazing crafter.  She also just bought a house.  Her first house.  This calls for a gift of a handmade quilt.  After giving Ms. Catherine a choice of two fabric packs that I picked up from Fabricworm, she chose the following:

An excellent choice if I do say so myself.  The next question for myself was what to do with this bit of loveliness.  I played with the pack and took a couple of the lighter gray shades out and put in a couple Pearl Bracelets from my stash (in that I went to the fabric store, bought them for this project, and put them in a bin before I began cutting).   But, I was still confronted with the question of what to make out of this.  Sure, I could just cut this all into five inch squares and sew that together but that isn't going to cut it because this is Catherine we are talking about and it is going to be special like her.

I was going back and forth on pattern ideas - some kind of disappearing 9 patch, a block called the Old Maid's Block which would just be funny to do, or something else.  And then it hit me.  Dresden Plates.  Why not take Dresden Plates and make them modern with that lovely fabric? I honestly had never really been that interested in the Dresden Plate pattern; I thought it was too old fashioned and fussy and not really "modern." However, after working my way through the Spinster Quilt I realized that half of the fun of modern quilting is taking an old pattern and making it new.  I checked with Catherine to make sure this would be okay and that Dresden Plates didn't bring up a horrible childhood experience.  "Sure, that would be fine except Dresden Plates were responsible for the death of the family dog." After getting the all clear, I bought the template and began slicing away at the fabric.

I have three done, about 13 or 17 to go, depending how a 4x4 layout looks.  This is also going to be a huge quilt - the blocks will be approximately 17 by 17 inches which is a whole lot of Dresden.

The next step will be to figure out how to put these on something and get those center circles cut and in place.  

Citrus Triangles

A sneak peek...

....at some pretty

I just finished piecing the second and final baby quilt made with the blocks from block-a-palooza.  I'd show it to you, but I folded it and its batting and put it in the car to keep it away from the cat army.  I did this before I took a picture so no picture until it is finished tomorrow.  I'd bring it in to take a picture, but that is just what the cat army would want me to do.

To make up for the lack of a picture on the finished product, here are the fabrics I'm planning to use in my next project - a half square triangle quilt.  I'm using three colors from Patricia Bravo's Nature Elements line, which is a fabric line I'm a little obsessed with at the moment.  I find myself going on-line several times a day so I can touch her fabrics on the screen with a mangled claw while whispering, "precious, my precious."  I own several  most colors already and am thinking of buying a few more.  The quilt will be three of her citrus colors with two Kona solid greens and, of course, Kona White for the other half of the HST.  I'm debating whether I should add a Kona orange to the mix - I'm thinking School Bus or Tangerine, but I don't know.  I don't want it to become too orange and I don't want to detract from the Nature Elements fabrics either.  Plus as much as a like the Kona solids, they don't glow like my precious here does.  Any thoughts?

March is National Craft Month

Block 9 - my new camera really brings out the stains in my cutting mat.  Also, the second in a series of cat butts. 

More fabric?  I'd better take a bath. 

To celebrate National Craft Month, I've decided that it is about darned time that I do some crafting.  I'm still way behind on the block-a-palooza, but I'm going to do something with what I've done so far.  Cherry House with Cherry House Quilts put out a call for help on behalf of the Baltimore Headstart program.  They need baby quilts and lots of them.  I think these blocks would look lovely and bright in baby quilts so I'm going to try to make one or two of them.  I'm also going to try "gasp" quilting the baby quilts on my home machine.  That shouldn't be too hard because they will be small and I have a walking foot, but it will be a new challenge for me and I feel like I'm up for it.