WIP Wednesday: The Dresden Edition

I can't believe it's already Wednesday! How is that even possible?! Before you know it, Labour Day weekend will have come and gone and the Jewish holidays will be here. For some folks, fall means back to school. For me, it means a month of holidays: festival meals, seeing friends at shul, reflecting on the year that's passed and the one to come. I'm hosting a Rosh Hashannah lunch for the second year for about 20 friends (adults and kids), because I don't already have enough on my plate! I kid! It was a really lovely time last year and I think we'll make it an annual tradition.

So. Wednesday again. I've already shared my finished Mug Rug with you, but here it is again, since it is so freaking adorable.

I also made my August blocks for the We Bee Learning Bee. Rita asked for four 6.5 inch postage stamp blocks. We were told to use any colours we liked, but to alternate light and dark tones. These are great stash busters. In fact, my blocks were entirely made from the fabric in my stash bags!

My biggest accomplishment of the week is that I am finally making progress on  my Sew Intertwined quilt. I finished the first tutorial, the dresden plate. I've made a number of quarter dresdens before (seven to be exact), but this was a a bit more complicated. First, I needed to paper piece the corners of each block so that they would "intertwine" with future blocks. That wasn't difficult and I do love paper piecing. Making the dresden blades was also simple and stitching them down went swimmingly. It was putting the four blocks together that caused problems. Even though I'd been very careful about my placement of the blades, when I went to piece the quarters together, things just didn't fit together. My blades were not properly aligned! I ended up fudging it so that the blades matched up nicely, but it meant that the seams in the centre were misaligned. Luckily they are completely covered with the centre circle so it isn't very noticeable (except of course to me).

I didn't follow the instructions for making the centre circle from the tutorial. They suggested using interfacing or two layers of fabric, stitching a seam around the perimeter and turning it inside out. This probably would have led to a smoother circle. Instead I used iron on freezer paper, cut notches and folder over a 1/4 inch seam.

 

The colours in the photograph are a bit little off because these are taken indoors. I'll try and take photos outdoors next time, but it is difficult to do during the week, what with working and all.

Here are my stats for this week:

In Progress

Mug Rug Swap - DONE

Curious Nature quilt - no progress

Sew Intertwined quilt - Dresden is done

Liberty Wiksten tank - on a break

La Dee Da skirt - no progress

Flora Charm Quilt - no progress
Farmer's Wife QAL - no progress
We Bee Learning Bee/Levi's Bed Quilt - I received my final block. Now I need to make a bunch more.

Hibernating projects

Levi's Growth Chart - no progress

NY Beauty QAL - no progress
 

In the Queue

Kona Sea Bundle quilt 

August We Bee Learning bee block for Rita - it's a postage stamp block and should be good fun. 

 

Please take some time to check out everyone else's WIP's on  Freshly Pieced and the Canadian Needle and Thread Network.