Piecing a Super Sixteen Dresden Plate Quilt Block

Time to piece the 8th block for the Machine Quilting Block Party! This is our most intense Dresden Plate with sixteen curved petals and a supersized center circle.

Always remember there are multiple ways to turn the edges of the Dresden Plate petals. You can also do fused raw edge petals using fusible web. Click here to see a video on multiple ways to finish the edges of your Dresden plate petals.

I decided to turn the edges to keep it consistent with the rest of the blocks we pieced so far. Learn how to piece this Super Sixteen Dresden plate in this new quilting tutorial:

Click here to find the quilt pattern for block #8.


We’ve finally added Microtip Glue Bottles to the Quilt Shop so you can apply just the right amount of glue to your applique shapes.

We’re offering the bottles in a set of two so you can use one for glue and one for sewing machine oil. The bottles work great for applying just the right amount of what you need exactly where you need it! Click Here to check it out.

The sixteen petals of this block present a bit of a design problem when it comes to machine quilting. If you are quilted inside each petal the quilting design could easily become dense because the shapes are so small.

To fix this issue I designed a larger flower shape that I marked on the block with larger petals that would cover two petals of the Dresden plate. This way still quilting a pretty flower design but not having to stitch inside every single petal shape.

My favorite part of this block is the feather wreath. If this looks familiar it’s because the same design was also included in the Block #1 quilt pattern.

This is an important aspect of quilting a sampler quilt. In order to tie very different quilt blocks together you need to use the same quilting design in different places.

If we only quilted a feather wreath in one corner of the quilt, but didn’t include it anywhere else, that design would stand out oddly in the quilt. Adding it to Block 8 was a way to tie the quilting design together. Even though the blocks are pieced very differently, the quilting design is what unites the sampler together!

What did you think of piecing this new block? Are you a fan of Dresden Plate quilt blocks now or wishing you’d never met? Share your thoughts in the comments below and be looking forward to the next video in the series coming up next Monday.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

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