Dresden Doilies Photo Shoot

Hi Everyone,

I have not been blogging as much as I would like.  Do you remember me telling you how busy this month is for me?  On top of everything, we are currently on a trip.  We are in Pennsylvania with the main destination being Gettysburg Battlefield.  Unfortunately, the government shutdown interfered, but more about that in another post.  This morning we went to the Hershey Gardens in Hershey, PA, and I took along Dresden Doilies and asked if it would be alright to photograph it in the garden and they said yes.  So, without any further ado, here are some of the results.  Warning:  lots of photos to follow.  I would love to know which one you like best!

Arched Fence

 

Flower Background

 

With some Daisies

 

Under a Tree

 

On a Stone Bridge

 

In Front of an Arbor

 

In the Giant Watering Can.  Doesn't it look miniature?

 

As a Fall Backdrop

 

With an Urn

 

 

Now for some close ups.  The quilting was done by Valorie, the Pumpkin Patch Quilter.  She did a beautiful job and was able to fit it in in time for our quilt show in less than two weeks, now!

 

 

She stitched the Dresden Plates in the ditch and McTavished the background.  The large and medium centers have a feather/flower quilted in them and the small centers are empty so they "puff."

 

 

It was a gorgeous day to be in the gardens, and the light was great.  It was cloudy, so there wasn't any harsh shadows from direct sunlight. 

 

I hope you all are having a great day, too!

JoAnne

 

PS:  I think my favorite is the one with the urn.  If you look at it closely, you can just make out my husbands legs on either side of the urn.

 



 

Trouble Times

Hi Everyone,

The last time I wrote, I was eagerly sharing the fact that my quilt was on display at the Temecula Quilt Co's blue and white show.  I was also attending our local fall festival and I was excited about it all.  Saturday was a fun day, but it seems a long time ago now.

As many of you know, my husband is in the Army.  He runs a "section" of his unit that has at least a dozen soldiers and maybe another dozen civilians.  Helping him with all of that are his two "right hand guys."  They work hard with him to keep everything running smoothly.  One of them called my husband on Sunday afternoon.  His wife has been having big issues with her knee--repeated infections that they can't cure.  She was on bed rest undergoing an "at home" round of IV antibiotics.  He went to check on her and she wasn't breathing.  They took her by ambulance to the hospital.  They couldn't save her.  She was 34 and leaves two sets of twins, 8 and 12, and a distraught husband who is blaming himself for not saving her.  It has all be completely horrible.  Needless to say, it has been hard to get excited about anything.

But, this activity we all share, quilting--is about comfort.  Handling fabric, using a needle, creating something are all activities that soothe me.  So I have been quietly working on a few things here and there while I try to begin to heal, but whenever I think of the family, my heart breaks again. 

One of the things I was able to do was to make a label for my Dresden Doilies quilt.  The quilting is done and it is on its way home. 

 

I knew I wanted to use an extra Dresden plate for the label, but I didn't want to hand-sew all those zig-zag edges onto the back of the quilt, so I machine appliqued it onto a square.  The square will be much easier to hand-stitch onto the back of the quilt.

 

And finally, my sister did get over to the Temecula Quilt Co shop for the show on Saturday.  This is the picture she took for me.  She even bought me a Christmas present while there.

 

I hope everyone has a great day.  Live it like it could be your last!
JoAnne

October

Hi Everyone!

I guess it would have been more fitting to post this yesterday, but I was busy.  It is finally October--a month that has been "red-lined" on my calendar for ages now. 

Yes, it is finally quilt show month!  Our quilt show will be held the last weekend of the month on the 26th and 27th here in the Newport News, VA area.  I hope that anyone out there reading this who is nearby can plan to attend.  I think it will be fantastic!

I'm going to be busy, busy getting ready.  I'm on the committee, and our sub-committee is in charge of the door prizes, the demonstrations, the viewer's choice voting, and the ribbons.  Yesterday, we got together to package up the door prizes.  The ladies who worked to get them donated did a fabulous job!  I arrived at one of their homes yesterday and the dining room looked like a small quilt shop.  Fabric, books, patterns, batting, notions, etc. were piled high.  We set about assembling all the small things together into prize "packages."  When we were finished, we had over 100 door prizes!  Since we sold 300 tickets last year, but hope to sell 500 this year, the odds of winning a prize are pretty great!  They take up lots of room, and since it is only my husband and I here, I brought many of them home with me.  It looks like a quilter's Christmas in here.

Aside from being busy yesterday, I didn't want to post because I wasn't sure I could trust myself not to comment on the recent political situation.  In fact, I just wrote more of this paragraph and then I deleted it, because I'm firm in my resolve not to discuss politics here on this blog.  I want a safe place where everyone can go to be distracted from it!

Along that theme, I can't thank Valerie over at Pumpkin Patch Quilter enough!  She is currently quilting my Dresden Doilies quilt at this moment, and has been posting "teaser" photos to Facebook.

 
Be still my heart!

I'm planning to enter this quilt in the show so I really need to get cracking on making the binding, label, and sleeve.  I have some other sleeves to make and attach to 2 other entries, too.  As I mentioned, October is going to be busy!

Have a great day!
JoAnne

Dresden Doilies Done

Hi Everyone,

I'm really excited to share with you that I finished the Dresden Doilies quilt top!  I didn't think it was going to happen so soon, but I had a good audiobook and lots of time yesterday, so I kept at it.  The biggest challenge with this quilt was the machine applique.  The quilt became fairly heavy as more plates were added, and manipulating the quilt became less fun as I went along. 

The good news is that I'm still every bit in love with this project as I was before I even began it!  I can't wait to get it quilted and have it finished.  I will not tackle that myself, though.

It is going to be a fun day!  My guild meets this morning and then there is a quilt show in the area so I plan to go with some friends after the guild meeting.  Quilt friends, quilt talk, and quilt eye-candy, can anything be better?! 

Have a great weekend,
JoAnne

A Little Switcheroo

Hi Everyone,

Okay, this is the post where I make a confession.  If you having been following this blog for a while now, you may have already picked up on this:  I am a bit "anal" when it comes to quilt making.  I can also be a bit of a perfectionist.  I tend to blame it on being in 4-H during my formative years.  The quest for a purple ribbon is strong! 

Can you tell a difference between this:

And this?  (Other than the fact that the photo below is only a corner?)

Probably not.  Here is a closer comparison.  Look at the centers.

 

Yes, the bottom one is pinned, but it is also a tiny bit darker than the one on top.

 

  When they are side-by-side, you can see the difference.  Really.  It is much more noticeable in real life!

 

 

 

When I ordered the medallion print and it arrived, I was a bit surprised/dismayed to discover that the background was French General "faded red" because the FG solid I was using for the block background was a darker red .  I guessed I missed out on that fact in the description.  I decided to try it out and see if I liked it.  I used it on all the large plates and I found that I could live with it.  It wasn't too noticeable.  Then I added the small plates and their centers were the darker red.  The red color was a factor when I auditioned all my FG reds for the small centers, but the one I liked best was the darker one.  As I began to applique the small ones in place, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to live with the faded red medallions.  So I ordered a yard of medallions on the dark red.  That was the third reason that I didn't take this quilt to my retreat.  (I mentioned two reasons in yesterday's post.)  The package containing it actually arrived the evening after I left.  Here are some text messages that I exchanged with my husband that night:

 

Me:  Did I get a package today?

 

Him:  No, but you did.   From UPS.  Some Jolly woman or something like that

 

Me:  ???

 

I swear that I did not mistype that.  That is exactly what he said.  Maybe you can figure out that the package was from Kimberly Jolly at the Fat Quarter Shop.  I did, but I'm not sure about the whole "Did I/ No, you did" thing.  Probably he was taking advantage of my absence by drinking some beer or something.  Around the third day I got another text message that said:  "I hope you are having fun because I'm miserable."  Aaahhhh, it is nice to be appreciated, even if it is said in a guilt trip, ha ha.  Luckily the lawn mower broke Saturday afternoon so shopping for a new one kept him occupied for the rest of the weekend.  He actually went to Walmart on tax-free weekend!  He IS the brave one in this family. 

 

 

At any rate, the fabric arrived and so when I got home from the retreat I began doing this:

 

It wasn't too hard.  Remember how I told you that the machine applique takes a series of straight stitches and then takes a "bite" into the applique?  I just ran my seam ripper under and ripped the "bite" stitches.  That left the straight stitches, but they are so close together that I wasn't going to try to rip them out.  I just made my new centers a tiny bit larger so that it covered them up!  All the ripping and follow-up appliqueing of the new ones only took around 2 hours (I had already prepped the centers the day before when I was still so tired from the retreat that I spent most of the day sitting around watching TV.)  It was worth it.  I think it would have bugged me forever if I hadn't made the switch, and I like this quilt way too much for that!

 

 

This is where I'm at today.  I have attached the red borders and started laying out the rest of the dresdens.  I only have 6 of the medium plates done and need to make 10 more.  Once I have them done, I'll make sure I like the layout of everything and then start appliqueing them and the rest of the small ones. 





This is a close up of a medium one.

You can see that I used the medallion on it, too.  I can't tell if I prefer how this one "just fits" or if I like the extra red around it on the larger ones as shown below.  I really love them both.  I was glad that it worked for both sizes.

 

 

Anyway, that is it for today. 

I hope you have a great day!
JoAnne

Machine Appliqueing the Dresdens

Hi Everyone,

This is the last of my tutorials showing you how I've been constructing the Dresden Doilies Quilt.

Once the "plates" and the centers are ready to go, I appliequed them on by machine using a blind hem stitch.  Many people use this technique and I'm sure that there are whole books out there on the subject, but this should help you at least visualize things a bit.

 

The first thing to do is to change feet from a 1/4" foot to a wider, zig zag foot.  I like one with an open toe, so you can see.  I didn't have an open toe foot, but my husband fixed that with his dremel--he removed the bar that ran across it, and I haven't regretted it for a minute!

 

Next select your blind hem stitch.  It looks like this one on the right:



What the stitch will do is take around 4 straight stitches, and then jump to the left and take a "bite" by making one zig zag stitch, and the repeat with the straight stitches.

This photo is supposed to be vertical.  I adjust the controls from the "default" or suggested settings for the stitch.  I shorten the stitch considerable, to make the "bites" closer together.  I also narrow the stitch width so the "bite" isn't too wide.  You can continue to adjust as you work.

The next consideration is thread selection.  I use as fine of thread as possible, so it is less noticeable.  I assumed that since I was appliqueing light shapes (in the case of the Dresden plates) onto a red background, that I should use light thread on top.  However, I noticed that the light straight stitches showed along the edge, so I used red instead.  It is so fine, that the one little "bite" stitch really didn't show too much on the light applique.  I used Invisafil thread on the top in red and a light Superior So Fine thread in the bobbin.

Here is a sample: 

The star fabric represents the applique piece and the lighter fabric is the background.  Set things up so that the straight part of the stitch is running right next to the applique piece, and not on.  Slowly start the machine and watch until it takes the few straight stitches and then jumps to the left to take the "bite" stitch.

Can you see that the needle has jumped over to the applique and is taking the "bite" stitch?  In the photo, I can see that it is probably jumping too far to the left--I can adjust the stitch width narrower, so the bite won't be as big.

Here you can see that the needle isn't as far over as it was above.  Just continue on--you don't have to go real fast, keep it nice and slow, watching so that each jump takes its bite of the applique and that the straight stitches are staying right next to the applique.

This is the result.  You can really see it because of the red thread.  Once you practice a bit, it is time to work on the real thing.

Going around a curve or circle is a little different, but I go slow to keep the needle right on the edge of the applique.

When done, you can barely see the stitches.  And it is so much faster than doing it by hand!

I am packed up and ready to head out to my retreat.  There is actually a few things left in my quilt room, but not much, ha ha!

Have a great day!
JoAnne

 

Dresden Centers

Hi Everyone!

I have now packed approximately 46 potential projects to take to my 4 day retreat.  Alright, I suppose I'm exaggerating a bit, but it doesn't feel like it.  The thing is that I'm obsessing so much with having everything I need for each project that I'm sure I'll do something dumb like forget my machine's foot pedal.  Or my pillow. 

I also worked on my challenge quilt.  I wanted to get it off my table and out of the way.  The plan was to do an applique quilt, but with fusible.  I got the background prepped, stems basted on and traced all the patterns, ironed the fusible to the fabric, cut out all the shapes, carefully arranged them, removed the paper, and fused them in place.  And something didn't look quite right.  I kept looking at the photo of the quilt and then at mine and it seemed like mine was too big or something.  The pattern shapes were, like most magazine patterns, on an insert.  They were all on one part of the folded insert next to a fold.  I opened out the insert and discovered the instructions on the other side that said to "enlarge the pattern pieces by 200%!"  I've never seen any templates in magazines that needed to be enlarged!  Did I mention that I'd already fused everything in place?!  Ugh!  I was able to peel them all off, but the project is being set aside for now.  I'm not sure if it is going to get finished now, either.  I'm not just frustrated by the fact that I made a mistake.  I'm also a bit unhappy about how easy it was to peel off the fused shapes.  This was a new product for me that is supposed to be "the best" and I followed all instructions, I prewashed the fabric and used no softener, and the pieces still came right off. 

Anyway, I want to share with you today how I did the centers of my Dresden plate blocks.  The pattern instructions in the magazine say to use raw edges and an applique glue--so in effect, you trace a circle, cut it out and glue it on.  I want to machine applique instead, so I needed to come up with a way to get a nice, smooth circle.  Have you ever tried to applique circles?  It isn't easy to get a nice circle.  I love the Perfect Circle templates, but I don't have the larger set, so I had to think of another way.

In my other life, I am a scrapbooker.  Okay, to be fair, I think I now have to say that I WAS a scrapbooker since I haven't touched it in nearly 2 years, that I packed away many of my supplies to make room for more quilting stuff, and most importantly--I haven't bought any new supplies in nearly 2 years.  However, I still have (and use) many of the tools.  One of the tools that I really like is my Cricut paper cutter.  It cuts many shapes in different sizes easily.  I used it to cut three different sizes of circles from cardstock for my centers.  I cut at least one for every circle I needed because I wasn't sure I would be able to reuse them.

Here is one of the perfectly cut cardstock circles, these are the finished size of the centers.

 

I then cut circles from my fabric that were an inch or more larger than the cardstock circles.  I look around for something round that is handy and close to the right size.  When I was fussy cutting the medallion fabric for my large centers, I used a blank CD.  The middle of the CD is clear and there is a hole so I could see that the motif was perfectly centered in my circle.  It worked like a charm!

 

 

I then took my cardstock and fabric circles downstairs by the TV.  Whenever I was watching something, I worked on the centers. 

I did a running stitch all the way around the circle near the edge, but not too close.    Then I place the cardstock piece in the center of the fabric (against the wrong side of the fabric) and pulled up the thread, as tight as I could, and knotted it off.

Like so.

 

Next I took them to the ironing board and pressed them with a hot iron both from the back side and the front side.

 

I sprayed them with starch and pressed again on both sides.  Carefully!  You don't want to burn the paper.  Once they are dry again and cool, I clipped some of the stitches and carefully removed the cardstock.

 You can see that the seam allowance has pulled slightly open, so I carefully pressed it down again.  Can you see how the cardstock is wrinkly because the starch got it wet?  That was why I cut one for each center, I wasn't sure how well they would work a second time, but I misplaced one, so I reused an old one, and it worked fine.

The results--perfectly turned, smooth circles!

 

If I didn't have the Cricut, I would have carefully cut circle templates from no-melt template plastic and used them.

 



 

I finished appliqueing the 9 small dresdens to the center so now I'm ready to add the borders.  They require 16 medium plates and 16 more small plates.

 

 

I will also share how I'm doing the machine applique.

Have a great day!
JoAnne

Dresden Tutorial

Hi Everyone,

I thought I would share the process of make the dresdens in case not everyone is familiar with the process.  I have heard from some people who tried making them in the past but didn't have good results.  I think I tried my first one way back in the 90s and it was rounded on the ends like this photo.
(It was an unmitigated disaster, too, by the way)

 

The problem with doing a rounded one is that you have to turn the curves under for applique--not fun.

 

That's what makes using the ruler, or the templates, for your blades so great--it self-turns making the applique a breeze.  Just watch.

Once you cut all your "blades" they look like this:  a thimble shape. 

 

First thing, press it in half the long way, right sides together.

 

You really will want the crease you just made later in the process

 

Next sew along the wider, top edge.  I like to start with the fold, but it doesn't matter which end you put through the needle first.

Here is my chain back at the ironing board.  Clip them apart.

 

Next you will clip the folded corner to eliminate bulk.

Like this

 

I do quite a few at a time.

Then turn it right side out and gently poke out the corner with a point turner. 

You will have a pile of these after they are turned right-side out.

Next you are going to press the tops flat.  You want to center your seam along the crease.  If you didn't have a crease to help you find the center, you can end up with some wonky blades.

Then you press it flat.

A finished blade!

Next you sew the required amount together.  These are the small ones for my pattern, so I used 14. You can see that it doesn't want to lay flat. 

 

Turn it over so the seams are facing you and then press them around in a circle, either clockwise or counterclockwise.

As you work with it, it will lay flat!  (Even if you doubt it will!)  The seams may pleat a bit at the center, but remember, it will be covered with the center circle.

 

The important thing to notice is that there are no raw edges on the outside of the plate!  Sewing that top seam has turned the edges for you!

 

When I did the largest plates, I appliqued the ring onto the background first, and then went back and covered it with the center circle.  Now that I have to deal with a larger, heavier background (the blocks with the large dresdens are now sewn together,) I decided it would make things easier to applique the centers onto the plates first, so that I have to handle the heavy top less.

 

I'll be back tomorrow to show you how I do the centers.

 

 

Have a great day!

JoAnne