Christmas Dresden Plates!

I don't know what it is but I absolutely love Dresden Plate blocks in Christmas fabrics!  There is just something sooo appealing about them.  I made these blocks today for the Block of the Month program at my local guild.  7 years ago our guild did a Christmas Dreden Plate BOM, but with the rounded edges, and I won the blocks!  You can see the quilt that I made from them here.  I absolutely love it and we have our Christmas quilts on the beds right after Remembrance Day and until about the middle of January.  Well when our BOM chair decided to do a Christmas Dreden plate I couldn't resist making a couple of blocks from scraps to add to the draw.  These are all left over fabrics from my Christmas Crazy Shortcut Quilt that I just finished so it was a perfect excuse to do the blocks LOL!  Imagine if I won again!!

I cut the center circle out using my Accuquilt Go! fabric cutter larger than I needed ~ then I used a technique that I saw on someone's blog but I can't find it again, sorry!, to turn the edges of the circle under.  I cut a piece of non-melt Mylar plastic the size of the circle that I needed for the center.  I did a basting stitch around the outside of the fabric circle and placed the Mylar on the wrong side of the fabric.  I pulled the thread ends of the basting stitch to turn the edges under on my circle then pressed it with a hot iron and starched it.  Remove the template and Voila!  a perfect circle with the edges turned under.  I love this technique ~ I just wish I could remember which blog I got this from ~ if you know that tutorial I am speaking about please post it here.

The edges are appliqued down using Sew Art invisible thread and a really small zig-zag stitch.  Very nice technique and it really is invisible ;-)  I love this thread since it has a lot less shine than other invisible threads that I have tried so it really is more invisible.

Have you all started your Christmas projects yet?