I'm still making dresdens, there are 4 more on my ironing board that I made last night after I took this photo. I have chosen a light natural linen as the background, you can see it in a couple of the circles. The other fabrics are from Mama Said Sew by Sweetwater.
I am leaning toward applique - not something I have done much of - using the portholes techniques for turning the edges under. If you have other suggestions for placing these on the quilt or turning under the edges that does not involve hand sewing, please let me know. I think that the placement will be something like the picture - randomly- which is why I am thinking that piecing the circles into blocks might limit the arranging options a fair bit.
I made these bee blocks for the Always Bee Learning Bee on the weekend. They finish as about 16" squares, each piece is a finished 2" square.
They are blocks from Elizabeth Hartman's Tokyo Subway Map Quilt, QAL and pattern at this link. Megan sent me the squares already cut up. Exactly what I needed, a chance to piece without cutting - it was a pleasure to make these.
And I entered Noise in the Summer Sewing Contest. I linked the contest to the Ta Da post here. There are now a lot of wonderful things in this contest, many made by my friends, so head over for some inspiration. There will be voting too next week, and frankly, it will be hard for me to ask for your votes when several of my friends have beautiful quilts the same category as me but I will remind you.
I am hoping to get back to Finish-A-Long sewing this weekend, and making more bee blocks - oh and I seem to have joined a couple of wonderful bees this week too, oops.
Enjoy your day, the sun is shining here.
Best,
Leanne
21 comments:
Best of luck Leanne. Love Noise as well as Red. You really have the knack of putting the colour combinations together!
So much fun in one post! Love the dresdens!
Can't wait to see those dresdens pieced into a quilt back. Lovely colours. And I seem to have joined a bee too - because of all the other lovely people in it.
I love the nice variety of dresdens that you've made! Very cute.
Good luck in the contest. :)
Loving your current project! I'm doing a "finish-along" project now - the stars - and have one more before I try my hand at the dresdens. Sure hope I fit that in! And pls do tell what bees you joined. Fun stuff..haha
Loving the mama said sew! And dresdens too, my fave! Can't wait for my preorder yardage to arrive!
You have my heart fluttering over your Mama Said Sew blocks. Absolutely delightful.
can;t wait to see the end result of these dresdens!
love those dresdens. mama said sew is going to be so much fun to play with! xo
Oh I got a whole bundle of Mama Said Sew today - isn't is lovely!
Can't wait to see how you get on with the appliqué.
The dresdens are looking great! I seemed to have joined an amazing Bee too this week! Can hardly wait to get started!!!
Lovely dresdens, and I really love your blocks too... Glad you've joined another bee, the others in it are lucky ;-)
Your circles look fantastic and I think they'll be brilliant placed randomly on a background! The porthole technique might be the ticket. Another option would be to sew them RST together with the glue side of a lightweight fusible interfacing. Then, make a slit in the interfacing and turn rightside out. Now you have a fabric sticker with raw edges turned under. Now you can fuse the interfacing to the background and hand sew the edges of the applique to the background. The only thing to be careful of is that you cannot press the edges of your applique with heat (you have to finger press) and work the interfacing to the underside as you applique so it doesn't show around the edges. I use this technique all the time, mostly when attaching labels to my quilts. Give it a little try first to see if you like it.
What Krista said ^^
Krista's idea sounds interesting! I think I'll have to do some test sewing with that, too :-) I love your dresdens!
Wow. . I love all your dresdens and I might have to try them. I love the tone colors you keep coming up with. You are awesome my dear!
Have you considered the stabilizer method for turning? I used it on the circle table runner...super easy and great results...no handwork!!!!!!! Let me know if you need a link to that tutorial.
One of my favorite techniques lately for applique is a machine blanket stitch (which is really my hem stitch reversed). It makes a pretty finish without all the work of hand-sewing, and minimizes raveling (although it doesn't stop it completely.
Pretty dresdens! Good luck!
I agree with Krista for turning the applique.
For the applique itself, have you tried mock hand applique? (Googling resulted in several good tutorials). Basically you use invisible thread in the top and a small blind hem stitch. Unless you look closely at it, it looks like you hand appliqued your work.
I love the Dresdens! Seems like you have lots of appliqué answers so I won't throw in my penn'orth!
Love the dresdens! I have a similar project I've just started - but with EPP spring carnival polygons which will be randomly scattered. I hate the thought of it but I think I'm going to have to hand stitch mine! I think Sarah fielke has an easy needle turn appliqué technique?
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