Plates

It is my habit to sit outdoors on the porch every night and read until it's too dark to see.  Once in awhile I take some stitching out instead of my book.   This past week PH and I were given the use of a friend's house in our old neighborhood on Lake Michigan so I maintained my habit but with a much different view.  Even when we lived here we didn't have a view of the lake from our house!  Can you see it in the background?   I did read two books this week but I also worked on these dresden plates.  A couple of weeks ago, in my attempt to whittle down my scraps, I took pieces big enough to cut plate blades and hand stitched them together.  The background is also from my stash....I am D.E.T.E.R.M.I.N.E.D to use my stash for any project now.   So these plates are very scrappy with no rhyme or reason to the choices.  Some of the fabrics are from the 1970s! I have them all appliqued down and now will look for something for the centers. 

 

 I have nine of these done and now that we are home I'll attach them and see what size I come up with.  It's going to hang on a wall and my hope is to have it done and hanging by the time Friend Jenny comes from Australia for a visit this fall.  How's that for a deadline, Jenny??  The bedroom will also be painted.  Do you like blue?

 This, though, is the project that I told you about a few weeks ago.  Remember the quilter who had never appliqued anything in her life and was given a pile of these antique plates to make into a quilt?  I couldn't stand what was going to happen to them after the quilt is constructed and so offered, after an applique lesson from me, to take six of them to stitch down for her.  

I pinned them to muslin, as are the others that were part of the assignment

 They are so beautiful and fragile and old that I had to have my hands on them for at least awhile.  I pray to the quilt god to keep them safe from harm and college dorms. Or is that the same thing?