Patience in Quilting – A Dresden Quilt #4 – in progress

I am really going to miss this quilting hanging around the studio.  Yes, it feels as if I’ve been working on it forever, but it is the sweetest thing to have around.

Read my first post on this quilt here.

If you have been following my blog for some time, you know that I can never make up mind how to make this quilt.  The quilting stumps me every time.  But for the past two dresden quilts, this one, and this one, I have done the ‘quilt as you go method’.  I’m not going to pretend that I like it.  However on that first one I mentioned (the last Dresden quilt I made), I did it in an okay way.  Do-able.

I don’t like to be stressed when I’m making a quilt.  I want to enjoy the process.  And when using the ‘quilt as you go method’ I had some trouble with the seam allowances being accurate and basically little things like that.  I always feel like those things create problems later.  I don’t want problems in the beginning or I’ll just end up with problems every step of the way.

So for this new Dresden quilt, I’m just going to make it the good old fashioned way and quit trying to find easier methods.  JUST DO THE WORK, MELANIE!

So I did.

I was so torn on what my centers should look like on this quilt.  At first, I had wanted them to be all dark blue, but quickly changed my mind when I put the questions to fellow quilters on IG.  It seemed that if they were all dark blue, your eyes would go directly to the dark blue and miss all that was going on with the plates and backgrounds.

So I decided to have some ‘pops’, but mostly just more of the same.  Now you are probably seeing the plates, which is what was needed.

To make this quilt, you will need some patience.  Maybe I’m just saying that because I made a king size version and I’m just exhausted.  But this took me quite some time.

It’s hard to say exactly how much time, because I stopped and started a bunch so that I wouldn’t go crazy.  Somewhere in the vicinity of 3 weeks sounds accurate, give or take.  I worked on it everyday.  I will give exact stats in the finished pics post that will come later this week.

Here it is up on my design wall (and floor).

For this particular Dresden quilt, I decided that every single block didn’t need a plate on it.  It gives it a little breathing room, I think, and maybe makes it a bit more interesting.  What do you think?  Maybe the breathing room isn’t so obvious, because of the low volume and raspberry background, but still, I feel like it’s there.  I’m also kind of a fan of missing blocks in quilts.  I feel like it gives them more, “oooo, why did she do that?” effect.  I also feel like it makes it more than just another ________ quilt (insert whatever kind of quilt you are making into the blank).

Hopefully, some of this makes sense?

Quilting king size quilts on a domestic machine is no joke, but I got it done Sunday afternoon (more on that later tho).

I feel more and more that I am in need of a long arm machine.  This thought usually pops into my head every time I quilt a king size quilt.  If only!

A long arm machine would take away the two hours of basting time that I spent on this quilt.  Would it take as long to quilt?  Maybe.  It would spare my neck and shoulders from lifting a quilt of this size all around though.  Plus, it would open up new ways and designs of quilting.  I’m limited because of the size of the quilt.  I can’t wrangle too much on a domestic machine.

I’ve rambled a bit in this post.  My apologies!