Happy afternoon! I have a new favorite block in the quilting world, the Dresden Plate, and today I wanted to share my process for making them!

When I started quilting and saw Dresden quilt patterns pop up, I was super hesitant. 

Sewing circles does not sound like my definition of a good time.

It wasn’t until I was told by my day job that a trip to Germany was in my near future that I started giving the Dresden plate a chance.

I wanted to buy fabric on my trip that was made in Germany, and develop my own take of a traditional German quilt block to use it with.  

So I started researching techniques and I found out there is literally no circular piecing required and they are actually very simple, fun, and quick to make! COVID ultimately cancelled the trip, but the pattern was ready to go any way just in case.

All of a sudden I’m super excited to make this new quilt pattern and can’t wait to get started.

What is a Dresden Plate and how did it get its name?

The Dresden block originated from a town in Germany called “Dresden”. The town was originally famous for making beautiful plates and dishes that the block was eventually inspired by.

The block consists of blades that are connected together to form a circle that typically gets covered in the center to form a type of sunflower shaped quilt block.

Dresden’s can be found in a couple of different ways, in full circles known as plates, or a quarter of a circle known as a fan. Blades are also found with either points or rounded petals. 

Regardless the size, shape, or complexity, the process is generally the same, AND it’s way easier than you’d think!

Choose Your Fabric

Typically Dresden plates will have anywhere between 12 and 20 blades in a full plate so there are lots of different options when it comes to the fabrics you can use for it. 

In the pictures below I used a new fat quarter bundle called Folklore from my favorite online fabric shop Fat Quarter Shop. 

If you’ve never used a fat quarter bundle before, its a super convenient way to get create color theory in your quilts without staring for hours at a color wheel. 

Companies like Fat Quarter Shop will curate collections of fabrics where all the color theory is already done for you and packaged up in a cute little bundle. 

All you have to do is choose the fabric collection you like and start cutting and what’s nice about Dresden blocks is you can use every fabric in the collection in the one block. 

Each blade can be a different fabric in the collection without looking overwhelming, cluttered, or overly scrappy. 

You no longer need to choose between your favorite fabrics 🙂

Want to browse some fat quarter bundles for your next quilt? Check out Fat Quarter Shop here!

Cutting and Sewing Blades

So to get started, using a ruler or a template, cut out your blades in the fabrics and quantities you want for each plate until you have a stack like the previous photo.

For this tutorial, I found this Folklore fat quarter bundle with 12 fabrics in it, so I wanted a 12 blade dresden plate with one blade in each fabric of the collection. 

Once you have each of your blades cut out, its time to get sewing. 

If you look at the ruler, you’ll notice there is a wider end and a narrow end. Take the wider end and fold it length wise, right sides together. 

Sew across the wide end of the blade so it looks like the photo below. 

A good tip for this step, when you put the blade through the sewing machine, feed it with the folded edge first, not the open edge first. 

This will help you keep the blade folded perfectly in half keeping the point of the blade right in the center instead of offset to one side or the other from the fabric shifting because of the feed dogs. 

Repeat this process with all of the blades in your plate until you have a collection of little folded blades

Forming the Blades

Once your blades are all sewn up, take your rotary cutter and snip off the corner in the seam allowance on the folded side. 

The next step is to turn your blades inside out and using a pencil, purple thang, small screwdriver, whatever works, to push the corner out to make that point to the blade. 

Removing that snip of fabric will remove some bulk and let your blade point sit flatter and stitch easier later. 

Once you have all of your blades turned inside out with the corners nice and sharp, take all those blades over to the ironing board and press them flat. 

A good tip here, when you go to press the blade flat, hold down the point with your fingers first and make the seam sit perpendicular to the bottom narrow edge of the blade. 

When your seam is angled, the outside edges of the blades will be different lengths which means they will not match up well with the blades that will eventually be sewn to either side.

By keeping that seam perpendicular to the bottom edge, the two sides of your blades will be the same length giving you accurate and standard blade shapes. 

Repeat the process for all of your blades until you have a pile of little fabric points. 

Making the Dresden Plates

This part is my favorite part. Deciding which colors go where in the plate and sewing it all together! 

Decide what color is going to go where, and take two of the blades and match them up right sides together. 

Sew down the edge adjacent to the finished point edge to sew together, reinforcing the stitches at the top finished edge. 

When you take the pairs off the sewing machine, snip the thread as close to the blades as possible so it doesn’t show in the final block later. 

Keep sewing blades together until you have all 12, in my case, sewn together, and then sew the first blade to the last blade to finish the plate.

Bring the finished plate over to the ironing board and press all of the seams in the same direction so the final plate lays nice and flat. 

Repeat for all of your plates!

Appliquéing the Centers

You may have noticed at this point that there is an ugly center to your dresden with unfinished fabric. 

This is the step where we cover that up.

We are going to make a circle with a turned seam allowance, but don’t be afraid!

With a couple of tricks, they are easy. You don’t have to try and make a perfect circle with just your iron that ends up more octagon than circle. 

We are going to start with a cardboard template, but not the corrugated kind, more the cereal box kind. Something thin that can withstand the iron. 

There are circular rulers that exist to make this, but I just traced a mug from the kitchen that happened to be a good size for what I was looking for. 

Whatever you use, cut a circle out from your cardboard, and try to use long cutting strokes to avoid choppy edges to your template. 

When you have your template, grab your fabric you want to use for the centers, and some tin foil. 

Yes. Tin foil. 

Using your template as a guide draw a rough circle about 1/4” to 1/2” larger than the template from the tin foil and center fabric and cut them out. 

Setting the tin foil down first, layer the fabric over that, and then finally the cardboard template. 

Using your fingers, fold the tin foil over the edge to the template with the fabric sandwiched between so its nice and tight and you can clearly see the shape of the template through the tin foil and fabric. 

The tin foil will force your fabric to stay in that nice circle shape until the iron can do its job and lock it in long term.

Work your way around the template until all edges are smoothed out. Any corners that exist in the foil will be reflected in your final circle so don’t rush it. 

Take your tin foil, fabric, cardboard package to the ironing board and iron your circle through the tin foil. 

Don’t touch it immediately once you’ve ironed it. It’s going to be pretty hot. 

But if you’ve got a couple of templates cut out, by the time you’ve ironed the last one, the first one should be cool enough to touch.

Unwrap the fabric and remove the tin foil and template and you should have a pretty little turned edge circle perfect for covering your Dresden’s center.

How to Attach Your Dresden Plate

Now it’s time to assemble everything. 

You’ll need a swatch of background fabric to baste your Dresden plate to. 

Depending on your pattern, you may be placing multiple plates on the same fabric piece, or you may be cutting blocks to baste to and then assembling those blocks into a bigger quilt top. 

To baste it to a quilt block, you’ll want to make sure the plate is nice and centered. Fold your background fabric in half and in half again to find the center point of the block. 

Center the middle of your dresden plate right over the center point of the background block. 

Baste the plate in your preferred method. Any method will work, as long as it doesn’t move. 

Here’s where you make the biggest decision of the whole block. 

To hand applique, or machine applique. 

That is the question.

Hand applique is the traditional method, but top stitching on the machine is significantly faster. 

I opted for machine applique and simply top stitched as close as I could get to the edge of the plate without falling off. 

Either way, work your way around the outside edge of the blades to secure the plate, and then start again to do the center circle of the plate.

And with that, your Dresden plate is D.O.N.E 

Helpful Notions

Before we get started on the tutorial, there are a couple notions to consider that will make the process even easier.

Dresden Ruler

Using a ruler or template to cut the blades makes a HUGE difference in making things easier, but there is a little thought that needs to go into choosing your size. 

Step number one is to figure out how many blades you want in your finished Dresden plate. 

How many blades/wedges does a Dresden plate have?

A Dresden plate can have as many or as few blades as you want, the only caveat is that the angle of your blades will have to change to fit them all in the circle. Adding too many blades will give you more fabric than your circle can handle leaving you with a plate that doesn’t sit flat.

To make this easy, different angles of rulers exist to get you different amounts of blades in the finished plate. The smaller the angle of the ruler or template, the more blades you’ll need to make it all the way around the circle. 

Going back to high school geometry, a full circle is 360 degrees. We need our Dresden blades to make it all the way around the circle to make a complete plate, so the formula ends up being pretty simple, 360 divided by however many blades you want equals the angle of ruler you’ll need. 

Or vice versa, let’s say you have a Dresden ruler that says it’s 36 degrees. You know the angle of the ruler and you want to know how many blades to cut to make to get all the way around the circle. Just do the opposite. 360 degrees / 36 degrees = 10 blades.

This is often easier by choosing a number that divides nicely into 360, not to mention you’ll be more likely to find a standard ruler in that size. 

You can find all different types and sizes of Dresden rulers and templates online, all you have to know is how many blades you want for your project to shop for the right angle of ruler. 

For this tutorial, I was going for a 12 blade Dresden plate. 360 degrees / 12 blades = 30 degrees/blade, so I needed a 30 deg Dresden ruler. 

I found mine on Amazon, you can get it here!

Vinyl Seam Allowance Guide 

This little tool is super cheap, but it’s hands down the best notion in my sewing room. 

These vinyl seam allowance guides have adhesive on the back that stick to your sewing machine. They serve as a wall to keep your fabric at that exact 1/4” mark while you are sewing. 

Related:
5 Hacks to get the Perfect 1/4″ Seam Allowance

While these are great for ANY quilting project, they are great to use for a dresden plate because if you start to stray from a 1/4” seam allowance, your plate may not sit perfectly flat at the end. 

All you have to do is bump your fabric up against the wall and keep it there as it goes through the machine which is super helpful for Dresden Plates.

If your seam allowance is too large you won’t have enough fabric to make it around the circle, you’ll basically be stretching the circle to make the full 360 degrees. 

If your seam allowance is too small you’ll have extra fabric and your plate will have bulk in it when you go to stitch it to the background.

These strips solve all those problems without a second thought. Set it and forget it and get the perfect dresden plate, or any quilt block for that matter.

Check these awesome seam allowance strips out on Amazon here.

Next Level

Dresden plates look way more complicated than they really are, and in reality are quick projects to knock out that let you play with all the pretty fabrics.

So next time you see a Dresden plate quilt pattern give it a try! They are most definitely unique blocks that most people can say they’ve seen or owned at one point or another. 

And if you are itching for a pattern and can’t find one you like, you’re in luck!

I have a new pattern coming out next month called Dresden Jewels that is featuring the blocks I used in this tutorial! So if you are interested in getting updates for when it gets released, be sure to follow me on pinterest below to get the updates right to your home feed.