Dresden Plate Garden

My latest quilt is washed and photographed and folded, ready to go to a new home! I haven't decided where it is going yet --- either to my parents, or to a good friend as a housewarming gift. But there is no rush in making a decision.

I have been leisurely making my way through some of the classic blocks (Irish Chain, Bear Paw, etc) and Dresden plates were on my list. But I didn't want to do them as I have always seen --- with riotous eye searing prints and dots and checks and whatnot. Bright yes, calico cacophony no! What I came up with was a selection of batiks & some pretty prints, which I alternated with cream spokes. I used a nifty orange/yellow/pink batik for the circle in the centers, and I think they turned out looking like flowers as planned:

And then I wanted to do some applique ... Which I hadn't done until this quilt. I used the freezer paper technique to learn how to do it (never again). Now that I know I think I will stick with fusible web unless I REALLY need turned edges. Raw edge + free motion stitching around the shapes works just fine for me! So the flowers, vines, butterflies, and ladybugs look alright in the picture .. but somewhat raggedy in reality.

I saw a lot of opportunity in the blank spaces between Dresden plates, so I sketched a square on point and subdivided it into 4 triangles and an inner square. The triangles all got the same vine & leaf motif (122 repeats in the quilt total) and the centers each got their own critter --- either a butterfly, hummingbird, or a dragonfly. I also stitched about a 1/4in outside each Dresden plate, and quilted whorls in each flower center in yellow thread.