Dresden mini quilt - finished!!!

Here it is, my Dresden plate mini-quilt, all finished and looking quite cheerful if I do say so myself!! This was the first quilt-along I've ever participated in, and I really enjoyed it. I can't recommend Lynne's instructions highly enough - it was the first time I've pieced a circle in quilting and she made it a doddle! If you want to do similar yourself, you could do worse than head over to her blog and follow along.

I am glad that I only did the one block mini-quilt. I think this will make a super pretty wall hanging but as the blocks are so big (30" x 30"), I'm not sure if a whole quilt of these big blocks would be entirely my taste, although I'm very tempted to adjust the pattern and do a quilt with smaller size blocks in the same style!

I backed it with plain white cotton. I used poly batting on this one as its for the wall, but its very see-through and anything coloured or patterned would have shown through batting and the white outer circle on the front. And when I came to bind it, although I would have preferred to use the blue or brown fabrics I have in the circle, the only fabric I actually had enough of was the Riley Blake Love Birds, so I used that. It turned out nice though and the blue, green and red running through it coordinate quite well with the pieced circle.

When it came to quilting, I was seriously tempted to do spiral circles all the way round, as in Lynne's original block for the QAL - but I wanted to practise my free motion quilting for the It's a Hoot quilt which I will be starting to quilt next week, so decided to go with this. I'm getting better all the time at the FMQ. It took me a while to get going on this quilt but once I got a rhythm going with it, it went well. I now have a good feel for the speed I need the needle to work at, and the speed I need to move the quilt at. But I need to figure out a better way to move the bulk of the quilt around particularly for the bigger quilt sizes. I was so pleased with the improvements I've made, I even took a closeup!! What do you think, its looking ok, isn't it?

So, all in all, a good Saturday's work! Now I just need to see if my mother really does want this.... if she doesn't, I'll be quite happy to keep it for myself, but I think she just might! I'll be linking this up to Fabric Tuesday and some other great blogs - check out my sidebar links!

Lastly - I want to say a huge WELCOME to all my new followers! I'm stunned and amazed at the response to my giveaway, and so pleased to have so many people join me. I hope you enjoy reading my little blog. I couldn't possibly respond to the hundreds of comments left for the giveaway, but I did read each and every one and I want to thank you sincerely for all your lovely words on my blog and my projects. It was so nice to realise that people had explored my previous posts and liked what they saw. I hope that you continue to read and, please - keep commenting!!