A Quilty 4th of July Lift-Off

Some of you may remember back in May when P. from The Way I Sew It gifted me this lovely Dresden Plate. I blogged about it here.  At the time, P. was part of the  Dresden Plate Party hosted by Kristen at So Happy.  As P. blogged about the process and what she planned to do with the Dresden Plates she'd made, I put a not so subtle beg in the comment section.  It worked!  This lovely Dresden Plate soon arrived in my mailbox.  I was one lucky quilter!

When I received the Dresden Plate, I knew immediately what I wanted to do with it.  It would become the center medallion for a small wall-hanging.  And although I've not worked on the wall-hanging physically since I received the Dresden Plate, I've been doing mental gymnastics trying to decide just how to show off its beauty the best.

I finally decided that a simple layout would be the surest way to do this lovely Dresden Plate justice, and so with the wonders of EQ (Electric Quilt), I auditioned several ideas.  This is the layout that I like the best.  (With the exception of the black background, ignore the colors.  I couldn't satisfactorily copy the colors in P.'s Dresden Plate, and the other colors are still up for debate.)

The Dresden Plate itself measures 13" in diameter.  The finished wall-hanging will measure 24".  The ribbon blocks on the outer border will be only 2" square.  Might be a bit of a challenge, but they are very simple to construct.

I'm excited that I can finally turn my attention to this project.  To that end, I did cut out the 16 1/2" black square to which the Dresden Plate will be appliqued.  Getting the Dresden Plate wall-hanging project off the ground was a fun way to spend 4th of July morning. 

I wish everyone a wonderful Independence Day!

Drunkard's Path, Past and Future

I am very partial to quilts with curved lines (or even the illusion of curved lines as in Storm at Sea). Drunkard's Path not only has curved lines, it's very versatile with many possible design layouts. A few of the many variations with their names are shown here.

The blue Drunkard's Path shown above, is hand-pieced and tied. I finished it back in 2005, although I'd started it several years before. It was one of those projects that got derailed by a major move--actually three moves in a year and nine months. The partially completed quilt spent a several years in a box before I was able to get organized and again turn my attention to quilting.

When I'd started the quilt, I'd intended to hand-quilt it, but by the time I was actually able to work on it again, it had spent so long unfinished that I used the quickest method, tying, to finish it. This left me feeling a bit dissatisfied. I vowed to make another.

I used Electric Quilt 5 to design the bed-sized Drunkard's Path below:


I imagine that this Drunkard's Path design layout has a name, but I've been unable to locate it. Hard to believe, however, that I would be the first to come up with this one. The design measures 92" square, and will require 484 units. The units are 4" square. I'm hoping that 92" will be large enough. If not, I'll need to make some modifications. I've bought the off-white background fabric, and have begun cutting the scrappy pieces.

This is going to be so much fun!