why are there so many... posts about rainbows?

Thank heavens that the day has only improved since my early morning wake-up in the midst of a house-shaking thunderstorm! Don't you hate when the real low point of the day is right at the start? Mine went something like this:

My husband (at 5:00am shaking me): "honey, I need you to get up and call the plumber... the water is almost to the top of the sump pit."

Me: "S#*T"

Fabulous. But a few hours (and many dollars) later, we are now the proud owners of a brand-new, super-exciting sump pump that is happily pumping away in the basement as I write. And it has stopped raining. And the water never actually crested the top of the pit. So I'm very thankful that a phone call and little bit of money were able to fix what could have been a disaster.

Now on to more fun topics. My happy, happy Dresden Plate pillow top is ready to be quilted! I am just pleased as punch with how it turned out! I used my new "Easy Dresden" ruler by Darlene Zimmerman and cut all the segments at 7" long. Then I folded them long-ways, right sides together and stitched a 1/4" seam along the top (widest) edge.

Don't they look like happy pennants all chained together here? Then I snipped the corner of each folded edge, turned the each piece right side out (while centering the seam line along the center length of the wrong side) and pressed, forming a crisp finished point. All the segments are then sewn together with a 1/4" seam. I pressed my seams open so the entire unit would lay flat, but you can press to the side if you prefer. After all that, you have a completed plate ready to sew to the background.

My plate will be a finished 18" pillow, so I cut my background (Moda Bleached White) at 20"square. Fold the background in half both length- and width-wise, finger pressing a crease so you can center the plate properly. In the photo above you can see my fold lines that line up with seams on the plate.

I used MonoPoly invisible thread to sew the plate on to the background. My stitches are very close to the edge of the plate.

The ruler came with a paper circle template for cutting the center. I used true red since I didn't already have that color present in any of the plate segments. The center is fused to the plate and background with Steam a Seam 2 and machine blanket-stitched with matching red thread to secure. I haven't yet decided how to quilt it, so it's back to the WIP pile for this little beauty.

We are actually having some brief moments of sunshine this afternoon. I do LOVE spring, but could do without all that thunderstorm drama! I hope you are all high and dry today!