Dresden Day at the Beach

Its SAQA Benefit Auction donation time again and this year's Dresden plate/fan quilt is inspired by colorful umbrellas at the beach. It started with a sketch on my iPad.

Sketch of design idea done in Paper53 on my iPad

Mock-up of design

The design process included mocking up the whole design in EQ7, removing the umbrellas and drafting the background landscape in EQ7 for piecing, drafting the umbrellas as separate paper pieced units, and the really fun part -- picking fabrics.

Background for piecing

Foundations for umbrellas

I live in Houston and our house flooded during Hurricane Harvey, so my quilt studio is very reduced in size, and most of my stash that wasn't damaged is in storage. I did treat myself to the purchase of Marcia Derse's beautiful set of half yards from her Palette collection, and those are what I used for everything but the sky.

Cutting and ironing set-up on kitchen counter

Pre-cutting pieces for foundation
piecing the purple umbrella

To piece the background I used methods I learned from Ruth B McDowell and Ruth Powers. I traced the background pattern (reversed) onto freezer paper, added registration marks and then cut out each piece as a template. for a bigger piece, I would make two copies, one to leave intact and one to cut up. Templates were ironed onto the wrong side of fabrics, cut out with 1/4 inch seam allowance, registration marks were transferred, and then the pieces were aligned and sewn together in sections (a la foundation piecing) and then section were sewn together. Umbrellas were made separately as free-standing units that could be positioned, stuck down with a little Roxanne Glue and machine appliqued. Before adding the umbrellas, I decided I did not like the sky -- too ominous looking, so I auditioned some alternatives. I also changed out part of the water.

Original pieced sky.

Sky alternative 1, printed fabric with clouds

Sky alternative 1, hand-dyed fabric from Frieda Anderson

Final choice with sky and part of water replaced,
and umbrellas appliqued in place

In preparation for hand embroidery, I fused the batting just to the top. After doing the hand work, I added the back fabric and machine quited to add contours to the sand dunes a pebbled path, clouds, etc.

Embroidery using hand-dyed perl cotton (#8) from
Laura Wasilowski and doubled 12wt threads from Jane Sassaman to make waves, birds and grasses.

Completed piece

This was a lot of fun to make and brought back great memories of the beautiful beaches, clear skies and turquoise water of the Caribbean.

Thanks for reading -- comments welcome.
Susan