Boho Round Pillow

I love the Dresden blade which can be used for fan blocks, flowers, and circles. I've made a few quilted projects using this and have so many more I want to make. 

I was inspired by some vintage fabrics that I had set aside and inspiration hit one day - the Dresden blade for a round pillow! I started with a 16" pillow form and sized the blades for it. I needed to fill in some fabrics and selected some that looked vintage (can you tell which are vintage and which are new?)

For making a pillow I wanted some stability so I spray basted it to muslin before quilting it.

For the center I cut out a cardboard template and used the foil trick for a perfect pressed circle. Lay a small piece of foil down, next lay your fabric right side down, then add your cardboard template on top. Fold up all of the edges toward the center and press from both sides. Let cool completely. Then remove the foil and cardboard. Press one more time.

I gathered the edges before sewing the front and back together so that it would fit around the pillow better. I like the rumpled look of the edges.

I made the backing with overlapping flaps for ease of removing the cover and washing it and I added a tie.

Here are some of the other projects I've made with the Dresden:

 Cotton Candy Color Wheel

Pink Dresden Flower

Pink Dresden Flower

I had lots of pink fabric strips left from the Sea of Pink quilt I made and realized it would be perfect with the Dresden template and make it into a flower.

The center circle is crazy patch pieced with some french knots add at the end for quilting it. The blades are hand quilted.

The background needed some subtle contrast so I used a pale blue batik and machine quilted it with light blue thread around my heart design to make it pop. I love the little pigs fabric, whic makes it whimsical! I feel relaxed looking at this hanging on my wall. 

This is what the template looks like: 

I got my EZ Quilting template from Darlene Zimmerman's website many years ago. The Missouri Quilt Co has any extra long template that can cut up to 10" blades.

Miniature House block

This miniature house block is 1 1/4" square. I wanted to do a tiny challenge after making two very large pictorial quilts.

 

 

It was challenging to get such short widths to be perfectly straight. I would like to make several of these and make a collection of tiny houses in different colors.

The Duck

After making the big poppy quilt I loved the precise piecing process of Ann Shaw quilt patterns. I picked this duck to make next and it's cheers me up when I see it on the wall. I love the colors too.

I used all batiks to give it a natural look. Here are all of the individual pieces cut before being sewed. They are all pinned on a foam board so that they stay grouped correctly. This is a great way to adjust any fabric color choices before sewing also.

 Precision pinning is required to assure each piece lines up to matching marks.

 Here is the back after all sewing is done and before the freezer paper is removed.

 Yeah everything is finally pieced and ready for machine quilting.

Here is a details of the machine quilting.

 

After two big pictorial quilts in a row - now I'm ready to makes something simple or smaller!

Pink Poppy

At last I finished this large poppy art quilt. It makes a very nice wall art piece.

It's all pieced and then lots of machine quilting. This is from a class I took from Ann Shaw through the Quilters Anonymous Quilt Guild. At first I thought wow this is going to be a lot of work drafting each piece from the template and cutting precisely and sewing precisely but it went very smooth. She has great step by step instructions to help make it a little easier. It does require patience and precision sewing.

Here are some details of the machine quilting with some thread blending.

This quilt is 40" x 33". Now I'm making a duck with this same pieced method.