Dresden Plate Quilt Responses

[Bubby]

Thank you so much for all the positive comments on my Dresden Plate with scalloped borders I posted yesterday. I have a couple tips to share with you if you want to scallop some borders.

1. Jenny did a wonderful Dresden Plate tutorial that takes the mystery about making the plates and sewing them to the background squares. I sewed my blades together by machine and then hand appliqued them to the background squares. The center circles were sewn on by hand also.

2. After adding the borders and quilting it's time for the scallops. Do this when you have plenty of time without interruptions. I used the scallop ruler sold here at M* for measuring and marking my border with a Frixion pen. Cutting out the scallops was the hardest part for me. Once I saw the border cut into scallops I knew I had made the right decision and I got excited to see the final outcome.

3. You absolutely MUST use bias binding or your scallops won't work out at all. I watched a great tutorial at Continuous Bias | Lessons | McCall's Quilting and it was so simple and clear that this part was easy. My quilt is 88 inches square, so I needed a small mountain of binding cut 2 1/4" wide. I used a 38" square of fabric to make 15 yards. I also tried Jenny's method of making bias binding and found the one at McCalls easier.

4. Watch Jenny's tutorial for sewing on scalloped borders a few times before you begin. The one thing I should have done was to use bobbin thread that contrasted with the backing. It would have made my sewing line for the hand hemming so much easier to see. Take your time sewing on the binding. I put a pin at the place where I needed to stop and pivot the binding on every scallop. It took over an hour to sew the binding on, but I went slow.

5. The hand hemming is the same as hand hemming straight binding. I was able to sew my tail ends together by overlapping them the width of the binding (2 1/4") and sewing them together diagonally like we do on straight bindings. Because of the 'give' in the bias binding it worked out with no problem at all.

Overall, the scalloped borders took more time than straight binding but I feel it was worth the extra time. I know you can do this if you have already learned to put on straight bindings. Take it slow and easy and you will be surprised how easy it is. Hugs, Barb