Dresden Plate Project...

Over the course of the last week or so I have been inspired by some beautiful and modern dresden plate projects that I've seen online. My fingers were just itching to create a dresden plate of my own. I decided to go with a simple wall hanging using fabrics that I already had on hand. All other weekend sewing went by the wayside while I worked on my dresden plate. Here are the projects that inspired me:
From Raggedy Owl

From House of A La Mode:

And this one from Oh Fransson:

I ended up using the tutorial from SewMamaSew here to make my block.  For the "petal" pieces and the binding I used some scraps from Moda's Wonderland line that I had left over from the nursery set I sewed for my daughter's bedroom.  I wanted the petals of the plate to "float" on the background so I used the background fabric for the center circle.  For the background and the center circle I ended up using a silk twill that I had in my stash.  This is an apparel fabric - a suiting weight woven silk.  (You can't tell from the posts to this blog so far but I do alot of garment sewing so I have lots of apparel fabrics on hand.)  I loved the texture and glow that the silk fabric brought to the block so I went with it even though I think it is out of the norm to mix this type of fabric into a quilting project.  Here is my finished block:

I hand quilted the piece with simple straight stitches.  I used some silk embroidery floss to quilt the center circle and in the ditch between each petal.  I used a turquoise cotton embroidery floss to quilt the edge of the petals all around.  Here is the block in progress with my embroidery threads:

A detail of my "chunky" quilting stitches:

Oh, and the backing is just plain old muslin - since this project will hang on a wall or lay flat on a table I figured it would be okay to do a boring backing. 
Overall I am very pleased with this project and I'd like to make a grouping of these blocks in different sizes to hang on a wall all together.  I think it would make a fun, graphic display - maybe near our back entrance near the kitchen?  I'll add it to the list of projects that I now have underway including:  Vogue 1220 (a Donna Karan dress in sky blue shirting), Vogue 8673 (a cropped jacket in grey wool/cashmere blend), scarfs for my boys (in blue fleece backed with fabric from Moda's City Weekend line), 2 more baby bibs (an owl print and a coordinating stripe) and 3 cross stitched dolls for my daughter.  There are not enough hours in the day!  However, my wonderful husband took care of the laundry this past weekend so I could stitch my dresden plate.   I'm a lucky woman people!