Modified Dresden Plates

I'm going to have to stop reading Jan's blog. I have had inspiration pictures and wanted to do something with Dresden plates forever and after seeing the cute pillow she posted the other day I ended up having some spare time at Mums house and started raiding her scrap stash - first I was just going to make a pillow but then these circles were so easy and fun to make that I ended up making 9! 

Of course I should say they were easy because Mum bought a template at the quilt show. These templates are wonderful! The other thing that made the process fast was starch (thanks Mum!) I snipped all of my scraps and then starched and ironed them before cutting- it made the process fast and I was able to cut 4-6 at a time accurately.

Of course my fun free project ended up getting rather expensive when I had to go buy fabric to put the plates on to!  Since I hadn't planned this project out I ended up at Joann's  (no patience to order things!) I originally wanted a grey linen but that was $$ and I wasn't in love with any of the limited color choices so then it was Kona Ash but they didn't have enough so I think this ended up being Kona slate...which now that it's done I think looks better then either of the light grey fabrics would have. And then while wandering the isles I spotted the green mini-check twill from the Lisette Collection. Perfect for my downstairs with all of it's little bits of green!

I just 505'd the circles onto the Kona and then machine stitched them on. Easy and fun I used the stitch that looks like a blanket stitch. For the quilting I used a variegated green pearl cotton. I refused to be all fussy with it since it was supposed to be a fun project- so it's not perfect! This was the first time I used the 505 on a quilt that I hand stitched and I have to say it was AWESOME! Are we sensing a theme? No annoying pins to put in or take out!

This quilt makes me super happy, it's already become a favorite for everyday use.