'Snow White' Dresden Mini

I finished my cross-stitch from the other day, and framed it with a pretty Dresden plate in pretty Tilda
'Bumblebee' florals (from Utopian Threads -  one of my fave fabric shops). Alice has been asking for some mini-quilts to decorate her bedroom wall 'just like mummy's sewing room' - this is the first one I made for her and I'm sure it won't be the last! That girl loves 'pretty', just like her mum!

The cross-stitch is 'Snow White' from the book 'Fables' by Veronique Enginger. The pattern has the seven dwarves in a frame around Snow White, but I left them out for this project. This is a book well worth investing in if you are into cross-stitch - it's full of so many other fabulous designs depicting favourite kids' stories! It's in French but that really makes no difference as the charts are super clear.

For the construction of the Dresden plate I used my Lori Holt 'Pie Ruler' and the large circle from her 'Sew Simple Shapes' templates, and followed her fantastic Dresden (or 'pie') tutorial which she has just published as part of the 'Sweetie Pie' quilt-along. It was a stroke of luck that my central cross-stitch was exactly the same size!

To finish off I embellished the Dresden centre with some cotton lace, hand quilted around the perimeter with Perle cotton and sewed on a wood 'Down Grapevine Lane' button (I bought these a few years ago from this Etsy shop). The cute strawberry buttons are from Ministry of Fabric, and the button card was designed by my lovely friend Elea Lutz and is available as a free download on her website.

Lori's method for making these Dresden plates produces a spare 'wagon wheel', which is the centre of the Dresden that you cut out before appliqueing the circle at the centre. It was too cute to throw out, so I turned it into a little ric-rac edged coaster! 

I hope you liked this selfish-sewing project! Now, it's time to get back to my magazine commissions and other secret squirrel stuff that I'm currently working on. Have a lovely day!