funky dresden tutorial part two.... let's sew!

At the end of the last post, we had all of our pieces for the funky dresden cut and were ready to put them together. If you're just now joining us, hop back there for all of the cutting instructions. Today we sew!

We'll start by sewing our dresden wedges into a circle. Flip your pieced wedges over on top of the next-door solid wedges...

flip the pink ones too, like I did the white ones here...

and chain piece them together. begin at the top and sew to the bottom of each pair...

Once you have them all sewn in pairs, lay them back out in your circle. This is your last chance to move them around and change the layout! 

Happy with the way you have them? Ok, now sew your pairs into fours, fours into eights and so on, until you have a complete dresden circle...

I have to admit to you, when I got to this point in my first funky dresden quilt I searched my house for something that was a perfect 20 inch circle. I found nothing. Then I realized, all I needed to do was go back and carefully trim the little triangles that popped up at each seam, smoothing the edges. 

Once I smoothed them out, I was ready to appliqué it onto my background. First, join your two background pieces (the 16 1/2 x 30 inch pieces) along the 30 inch side with a 1/4 inch seam. Press the seam open. Now lay your dresden circle on top, carefully matching the top and bottom when the dark and light backgrounds come together...

At this point, applique your dresden on top however you like to appliqué. I confess, I am not an appliqué genius! I chose to pin mine down, really really well, making sure it was laying completely flat, then I raw edge machine appliqued using the buttonhole stitch on my machine.

I changed my thread color to match each background fabric...

Turn your quilt top upside down and carefully trim away the excess circle in the center, leaving a good seam allowance (mine is about 1/2 inch). Be very very careful not to cut your dresden circle. This will reduce the bulk of your quilt top.

Now we need to deal with the hole in the middle!

I auditioned lots of different center ideas. On my first funky dresden, this was the subject of debate on my instagram page. For that quilt, I ended up going with a 2 1/2 inch wonky square. This time I decided it wasn't my favorite option...

The 2 1/4 inch split circle was ok...

I even tried that one reversed, as was suggested to me on instagram. not bad...

In the end, this time I decided to go with an orange center that matched my pieced dresdens...

Again, I pinned it down really well and blanket stitched around it....

And your quilt top is done! 

Ready to quilt as you wish. I did my first one with radiating lines from the center. I really want to try spiral quilting on this one.... we'll see if I can get my nerve up!

After quilting, trim your topper to 30 inches square. On my first quilt, I trimmed the excess off of one side, leaving my circle uncentered, just the way I wanted it! I think I will do the same with this one.

Finish off with matched binding to keep the background uncluttered. Or do something different! If you decide to go with matched binding, I recommend Debbie's tutorial here. 

If you make a funky dresden quilt, I hope you'll post pictures on instagram. Tag me (ellynz) and use the hashtag #funkydresden. Have fun with it!