Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And take a look at this quilt behind me. Isn’t this fun? If any of you know me at all you know that the Dresden was my nemesis quilt. I just thought I could never make a Dresden. And once I learned I could make a Dresden I really became obsessed. You guys will have to search the videos. On our app we have a search bar, you can search Dresden quilts because literally for awhile there I had like a Dresden Christmas tree and a turkey and a, I mean I just did Dresden everything, wall hanging. Oh I’m telling you I love Dresdens. Anyway I love the look of this. This is a half Dresden. It’s set on a black block so it looks like the sun is rising, love sunrises and sunsets. And we’re calling this Here Comes the Sun. So to make this quilt what you’re going to need is one packet of ten inch squares. And we have used Lava Batiks solid Sunset. How perfect is that? That’s by Anthologie Fabrics. We set these little half Dresdens on big 14 inch squares and so you’re going to need 5 ½ yards of this black background. We also did not do a border on this. We just did a little binding out here, ¾ of a yard for a binding. Our back is just plain black. But you’re going to need 2 ½ yards of 108 fabric on that. But take a look, look we stitched this with orange thread. It’s so pretty. Let me get this little fluff off of here. There we go. Isn’t that beautiful stitching? I hope you guys can see that. It’s really, really pretty. So let me show you how to make this block because it’s a lot of fun and it’s super easy and once you learn how to make a Dresden I’m pretty sure you’re going to be addicted too.

So what we’re going to need is this Dresden template. Now ours is made for the pre cut so it goes all the way up to ten inches. But we’re going to be cutting our blades at the five inch mark. So what we want to do is we want to take our ten inch squares. And we want to cut them in half so that we have two, two five inch, five by ten inch rectangles. And then if you do that you get one extra blade out of it. Now you’re not going to use all of this fabric to make this quilt. But you’ll use a good amount. So let me show you how we’re going to cut these. We’re going to cut them like this so you’ll lay your, take your blade and you’re going to put it on your strip, your five inch strip. And we’re going to slide it all the way over to the edge as far as we can get it. And we’re going to cut one right here like this. And then we’re going to cut it on the other side as well like this. Ok? So that gives you your blade. And it takes this edge off. So now you’re going to be cutting only one side. You’re going to flip your, your template around like this and cut the other one. And flip it around and cut the next one. So it becomes very easy to cut these. Now if I were doing these and I didn’t already know that I had some made I would probably stack up four or five of these pieces so you’re cutting a whole bunch of blades at once. For each block you’re going to need 14 blades. And let me count to make sure, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I take that back, ten blades for each block and there’s 42 blocks. So just keep that in mind. So we’re cutting our blades out like this. And then let me show you how easy it is to make a Dresden blade. Oop I can get one more. Wait I can’t go on. I have to do this one more. Here we go. So I’m going to put this on here and I’m going to cut off this little edge right over here. There we go. So see that’s pretty good for waste, two little tiny pieces.

Alright so now what we’re going to do to make a Dresden blade is we’re going to fold this right in half like this. Now these, these batiks, a lot of them don’t have wrong sides. So it doesn’t really matter what side you’re going to use. But you’re going to fold it in half like this and I just finger press it so it will lay down nice and straight. And then I’m going to sew a quarter of an inch right across the top. Right there. So let’s go do that. Alright so I’m going to set my presser foot on the edge and we’re just going to sew a quarter of an inch straight across. Alright so now this is what we have right here. And what I’m going to do is you can take your blade or your little pair of scissors and I’m just going to nip off that corner like that. All that does is help it to turn easier so that it will lay flatter. Now we’re just going to flip this in. And to do that I stick my thumb in here, pull my seam so it’s all on one side and then I just push it through like that. And there is your little Dresden blade right there. Look how cool that is. Just one seam and you get that little blade. Alright so let’s press this down because we’re going start sewing these together.

So I like to sew them in groups of fours like this. So I’ve got one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, and, and I need to add a couple more. So I’m going to take the one I just made and I’m going to actually get a little pin and poke this little point up so it goes up a little better. There we go. And then I’m going to sew these two together. Now what you’re watching for when you sew the blades together is you want this part up here to match, right here. We don’t care what’s happening down here because we’re going to cover this with a circle. But these two little blades right here, we want to watch to make sure they’re lined up. And then we’re just going to start right here. And sew straight down, a quarter of an inch. Alright, here we go. And I’m going to backstitch this because I don’t want this to come apart. This is one of those times where it’s good to take a few extra little stitches in there so it comes right apart. Alright now what I”m going to do is I”m going to press this open. And I”m going to sew these together. Now let’s look and see what makes the pretty layout here. And I think that’s going to be pretty. So I’m going to sew this four to these four like this. Again, do a little backstitch. For those of you who don’t know the sewing lingo, a backstitch is just where you, you should have a button on your machine that causes it to sew in reverse. So you’re going to sew forward a couple of stitches and back a couple of stitches. And then that just like, it will keep the seam from coming apart and being kind of fragile at that point. Alright now I am lining this one up and sewing from the bottom up. It doesn’t make any difference. I just wanted you to know you don’t have to do it this way. But I’ve lined up my top edges so they match perfectly still. Alright, hang on, here we go. Ok now we are ready to press this open. And I’m just going to iron this out. Let me move these things for you so you can see this ironing. I like to kind of press so that my seams all go one direction. It doesn’t really matter because we’re not sewing it up to anything so it won’t really matter.

Alright so my background square, how I come up with the size of my background square is that when you make a plate, a Dresden plate, which is a whole full circle, when you make one of those circles, it’s generally about 12 inches. And so I made this block 14 so that I would have a little bit of room on either side of my Dresden plate. Let me trim off these threads right here. I’ve got a little scissor right here, I’m going to trim them off. Let me see here. And even the trimming doesn’t matter because we’re going to cover that up with a, with a circle. But it just makes it neater. Alright so we’ve got those threads stripped off, I mean clipped off. And we’re going to lay this at the very bottom of our block. Now right here, you see we don’t have to turn these edges under because it’s going to go in the seam. So I”m going to put some pins on here like this. And I’m going to show you actually two ways to sew this down because I love to have stuff to do, hand stuff to do when I’m in the car. And I love to sew my Dresdens on when I’m driving along because it’s mindless, it keeps my hands busy and if my hands are busy then I’m not reaching in the snack bag, you know. So I have a plan, I have a plan for this. So I pinned it on like this.

And now we have to think about the circle. Now there’s lots of ways to make circles and we only really need a half circle for this one. But I decided it would be easiest to use interfacing right here. And we’ve used this, let me show you this over here.This is a Heat N Bond iron on fusible. And it’s a, let me make sure I say it right. It’s feather weight iron on fusible interfacing. And there will be a link for that in there so you can go get it. But what it is if you feel it, it’s bumpy on one side and really smooth on the other. The bumpy side we want to put toward the right side of our fabric. And again on a batik it’s hard to tell, you know, what’s the back side. But I put it toward the front side that you’re going to want to show. Then we’re going to sew a quarter of an inch all the way around. Alright so what we’re going to do is I’m just going to set this up and set my presser foot right along the edge of my circle. And we’re just going to sew right around the edge. Now this is a 4 ½ inch circle. I should talk about that for a minute. Because when you make a Dresden, depending upon what you’re making you’ll have that circle size in your head already. And I literally will search my house for the perfect coffee cup or vase or something like that that is just going to be the perfect size circle. And I will trace that on a piece of cardboard and use that as my template. We’re including a template for you so, so that’s an easy way to do that. But generally what I do is I look for something that is the size of the circle that I want and I’ll trace that.

Alright so now I have this and what we’re going to do is we’re going to cut this in half because we’re only using half of our circle. And so this is a, this is set up here, my half mark is going to be right here.. These are 4 ½ inch circles that I’m using. I don’t remember if I told you that. But they’re 4 ½ inch circles. But really your circle could be just about any size. Now an old sewing tip, whenever you’re sewing on a curve if you clip it a few times, don’t cut through your stitch line, but clip it a few times and trim it close to the selvedge or close to the stitch line, your piece will turn a lot easier. It’s hard for me to talk and cut these, these little things. Alright let me just trim this just a little bit closer. Alright so then we’re going to flip it right side out, just like this. And this is going to give us a nice clean edge. A nice round edge for our circle. Now what we’re going to want to do is we’re going to want to, we’re going to want to make sure this edge is nice and round. And we’re going to want to finger press it. If you press it with the iron this is going to be stuck to your ironing board because remember those little dots were on the inside there. So then this circle is going to go right here. Now you can touch it with the iron and it will stay there. You don’t have to pin it or anything.

Alright so let’s talk about how we sew these on. So this one right here is done with a button stitch on the sewing machine. It looks great. It looks fine. I like the look of it. A lot of people like to use accent stitching on their edges. And this is just that little applique stitch that’s on most machines. And I would get some practice fabric and try that stitch out and see if you like it. But I want to show you how to hand sew it on for those of you who want work in the car. So let me give you, let me go ahead and press this little circle on right here. And I’m just going to iron this and hold it for a few seconds so that it just kind of sticks on there. And I want to show you how easy this is to stitch these on. A lot of people think that when they’re sewing a Dresden on, they’re appliquing. And you can applique. That didn’t stick on as well as I wanted. I probably didn’t hold it long enough. You can applique. But when you applique your stitches are pretty close together. And, and so I learned a long time ago that when I sew Dresdens on basically I’m going to be quilting right over the top of these Dresdens so my stitches don’t have to be tiny or close or careful. They just have to hold that blade on until it gets to the quilters.

So basically what I do, this is called a ladder stitch. And I’m just going to come up this edge right here. And I’m going to try to get this so you guys can see it really well. I’m going to bring my needle up and I’m going to come up right through the fold. See how I’m coming right through the fold like this. And then I’m going to go straight back down into that hole. And then I’m going to come up about a quarter of an inch away. I know you’re gasping because it’s so far away. But really all it has to do is hold this on. So again we go straight back down in that hole. And then come up a quarter of an inch still in that fold. And that’s all that is. Just like this. Now you want to make sure that you use thread that’s going to match your top piece. If you use thread that’s going to match your top piece it won’t show too much. If you use thread that’s your background color, it’s going to show terrible. So now I’m at the point and I’m just going to come back down the other side and I’m just going to keep doing the same thing. And I’m just going to go in where I came out and come back up about a quarter of an inch. And that is a ladder stitch. That’s the stitch I use for binding. I use it for all kinds of things. So go right back in and come back up. See and we’re coming right out the fold. And I’m doing pretty good even, even because I’m not even wearing my glasses. Look at that. Now if I, I would probably have picked a yellow thread for this but I didn’t think about that. But this gray is actually working. Gray is a really good universal thread. But be sure and match your thread to the color, your top piece, remember that. That’s the key, you match it to your top piece. And if your top piece is all different colors then you’re just going to lay some of the thread, some of the colors across the top and look at the one that disappears. And that will be the key for you for knowing which one is going to blend the best with all of them. Alright so we’re back up here to the point. And I’m just going to go around and do that. And I love having something to do, something for my hands to do when I’m watching television at night or when I’m driving in the car. So this is just one of those great projects if you want to make a Dresden quilt that just you know you don’t have to finish tomorrow. But you just want to take some time with and sew together.

So once you get your blocks done, literally we just sewed our blocks together in rows like this. And we’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six, blocks across, seven blocks down. It makes a great quilt. It’s 81 by 94. And it’s just a really fun look for it. I love that we used the black on the background. It makes the suns just pop. I love that we chose and an orange thread for the stitch color because then you just get to see that beautiful pattern. This has been a really fun quilt to design and make. And we hope you enjoyed Here Comes the Sun from the MSQC.