Thanks Prism99 and peckish, I think I will do the blocks for the background, after reading all the info on appliqué it sound like I would be looking for a lot of trouble if I did try to work with a large piece of fabric.
I haven't done very much appliqué so I am a beginner. Thanks for tell me about starching real heavily.. It will take me a while before I get to that part, as I want to make a king size quilt..Thanks everyone..

I too recommend appliquing each plate on a block. But, as I was reading this thread I remembered a technique used a long time ago where chintz floral print designs were cut out and appliquéd onto a background fabric-----____borderie purse- or something? Done by hand though and I don't think layers of starch were used either, as those pieces that still exist using that method probably were never washed.....

My favorite quilt to date is a Dresden plate (bed size quilt) where the plates were different sizes and scattered out on a one fabric background. It was a bit bulky to get all the plates sewn down, but it was worth it. Some of them at the edge were not whole Dresdens. It was total fun to make! Course I'm a major fan of bending the "rules" a bit. Dresdens can be very formal and uniform, or you can make them wonky and wild. Your call! Have fun!

You could also hand baste the plates down to whatever background you choose before you start machine sewing (or even hand appliqueing) them down.

As bothersome as hand basting is at times - it can be a great time saver in the long run.

You don't have to put the dresden plates in the middle of the block! If you applique the plates in different areas of the blocks, then sew them together they will not be in straight rows. Also, you might want to fuse the plates down to hold them in place if you do the whole cloth.

I'm sure your approach would work. The piece would look like the plates are floating. If that is the look you want (instead of sashing between) then go for it.
If I were doing it that way, I would work from the center out. When you position each plate, add some tear-away stabilizer on the back. That way your pieces won't distort the backing fabric. I tend to stick my applique down with tiny dots of Roxanne's glue baste. That way nothing will shift when I actually sew the applique down.

I would make a plan for layout ahead of the game but I would only attach one plate at a time so the pieces won't get in the way. It will still be a lot of fabric to pull under the throat. As a beginner you may not be doing yourself any favors.

I did a Dresden Plate appliqued randomly onto one large background fabric as you inquired about. And I have to agree with much of what Prism99 said.

Before appliquing a plate, I heavily starched the background fabric in that area, and I also used a lightweight two-sided fusible tape (just around the edges of the plate) to afix the plate to the background, as well as pins.

Manuvering the bulk of the quilt while sewing down the plate was combersome, but do-able.

I even included a few half plates around the edges of the quilt and quarter plates in the corners. I haven't quilted it yet, and will most likely send this one out to be done on a long arm instead of trying to FMQ myself.

Sorry the picture quality isn't so good, I had to pull the quilt off the shelf to take the pictures, and didnt' take the time to iron out the fold creases.[ATTACH=CONFIG]555353[/ATTACH]

Oh, I just saw you were wanting to do a king size. The one I showed is only a twin. In this case, size does matter.

Something you can do to determine if you want to tackle this project, is to take an old king size sheet and load it onto your machine (don't thread the machine). Place the sheet in so that the needle is approximently 16 inches from the corner of the sheet, then lower the needle just to hold the fabric in place, but leave your pressure foot up. At this point the fabric to the right of the needle will be the minimum amount that will ever be there. Now turn the fabric 90 degrees (don't sew, just turn), notice how much fabric is now under the throat of your machine? Turn it again another 90 degrees, and then turn one last time.

After doing this excersize, you'll know which method you would rather use.

That's a great idea AStitchInTime. One thing to remember is that the final piece would be a bit bulkier because of the added Dresdens that have already been attached.

I think I would fuse the plate to the background. It just makes sense to me.