Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Cheatin' Dresden--What do you think?

Here's another WiP Wednesday post to share with Lee @ http://freshlypieced.com.

Humm....do you ever have a quilt block that you're just not sure if you like how it turned out?

We took a trip for Spring Break down to Zion's NP and on the way home stopped at Cove Fort.  On one of the beds was appliqued Dresden quilt with 8 points instead of the traditional 12 points.  This got me thinking (I should have been paying attention to the tour guide...but oh well).  Is there a way to strip piece a darker fabric to a half-square triangle to mimic the Dresden plate?  Obviously it would be a "modern" block version as it wouldn't be appliqued.

So...here's my try and I'm not sure if I like how it turned out.  What do you think?  I have this whole quilt pattern idea in my mind, but I'm not resolved on the quilt block.  Humm, I'd love your feedback.

First, I drafted a template of my quilt block pieces using Electric Quilt.  Since I wanted to use quilt rotary cutting techniques, I didn't cut out the template pieces.  I took the rotary pieced rectangle and triangle and laid them on top of the template seams and pinned them in place.  Then the 1/4 inch seam was sewn, fabric was pressed over and excesses trimmed away.  This proved a waste of fabric and it would've been more wise to use the templates, but if you don't experiment a little, you'll never know.

Then two half-square triangle units were sewn together to create the four corner squares.

The four corners were sewn together to create this block.  I think I would like it better if I took the time to pin-match the colored triangle corners and spun the center seam to get sharp points in the middle.  However, its a "modern" block so I suppose obeying all those piecing rules is unnecessary.  What do you think?