Wild Imagination

This bright and fun dresden plate mini quilt "Wild Imagination" is on its way to its new home in Australia. And yes, I joined another swap despite my promise not to, because I just couldn't pass up the Mini QT Swap April theme "Circles and Curves".

The great thing about this swap is that it is NOT a "blind swap" swap. It was super fun because you get paired with your partner in the beginning and you each get to create a mini quilt for the other and share sneak peeks.

After searching through my swap partner's "favorites" on flickr, I came up with my design idea, the Dresden plate, and chose these lovely fabrics. This photo was her first sneak peek.

I only recently discovered the fabulous line of Creative Grids rulers and had the Water Wheel House Quilt Shop order this Dresden ruler for me. The thing I love most about the Creative Grids line is the sticky little feet (or rather circles) on the bottom of the ruler that grip your fabric and prevent the ruler from slipping while you cut. When I cut the petals for this quilt I used the ruler, an 8" rotating cutting mat, a 28mm rotary cutter, and a charm square, and all 20 pieces were cut in a jiffy.

Shelley over at the Water Wheel House Quilt Shop is super sweet and helpful, and is happy to find, order, and ship any Creative Grids Ruler you'd like :D Ha ha, I had her searching for a ruler just from a photo in my favorite quilting book Material Obsession 2! Ok, I was really naughty and had her order me 5 other rulers too ~ yes, I love these rulers that much!

After choosing the rainbow spectrum of colors for my dresden plate, I simply followed the instructions that came with the ruler and voila my dresden was ready to be hand appliqued to the text background fabric! You could of course machine stitch them on instead. The instructions were super easy and I loved the technique they suggest for turning under your petal edges. You take a dull embroidery needle and sort of emboss the curve using the round ruler and you have a perfect little curved line to turn under.

I couldn't quite decide what to do with my flower center and spent several days playing around with ideas when I came across this lovely old dresden on Pinterest that was from a post on Design Sponge and thought the center was genius. I love how inspiration will find you if only you sit and think on it awhile :D My flower center was also hand appliqued and then I did a decorative blanket stitch around both center fabrics. That same floss was used to do a single line 1/4" around the petals on the background fabric.

And can you see that little decorative border of FMQ I did around the edge of the quilt? Probably you can't see it on the front ... it comes across as a nice texture though ... but you can definitely see it on the back. Some straight lines of quilting also were added to continue the line from each petal segment.

And to top it all off I added a double heart label that was fused raw edge to the quilt using Steam-a-seam 2. Again, I used a blanket stitch around both hearts.

I hope she loves this little cutie as much as me! Maybe someday I will get around to making myself one??? The petals for another one were cut when I made hers ... but the funny thing is, I don't think I'll need too, because from my sneak peek it looks like she made me a dresden too! Yippee! Its been shipped and should be here soon :D

Happy quilting,
Colette