I am making a Dresden Plate for the first time, and a Grandmother's Fan for the first time since my only quilting class 6 years ago.

I cut my templates, and cut my pieces. I bought Wunder Under but made sure to get the webby stuff instead of the really stiff stuff, since I will be hand quilting later.

I have my directions written down and am ready to piece the plate and the fan. I thought, while I was doing that, I would throw some questions out.

I make the pieces and then Wunder Under them to the background piece before I zig zag around because my machine does not have a cool blind hem stitch.

If I wunder under the plate to the back ground fabric, will I still be able to hand quilt it later on? Also, the directions for the plate say to flip it over after it's appliqued and cut off the excess fabric under the plate itself. I can't do that if I've used Wunder Under can I?

if it's "webby" you may be able to seperate the backing from the wonderunder after it's zigzagged. do a test first.

after you have the test piece appliqued to the test background, flip it over. try inserting a long pin or needle between the backing and the wonder under. if you can do that without poking through the front, you can use the pin/needle to gently seperate the layers and then clip away the excess backing.

i know this works with stitchwitchery because i've done it. have never tried it with wonderunder, though, so you will have to be the guinea pig for the rest of us. lucky you! :mrgreen:

I saw something about fusing only around the edges. Can't remember exactly but I think you trim out the center before fusing. Then the center of your Dresden won't be fused leaving less bulk and also allowing you to trim the center of the background fabric. Anyone else have info on this?

That's exactly as I understand it, you trace the shape onto the fusible, and trim away the centre leaving about 1/4" to 1/2" of it left around the perimeter :D

When I did my Dresden Plate Christmas Wreath wall hanging, I used the Steam-a-Seam tape (I get it at Joann's or Hancock's when they have the notions wall 1/2 off.) I just fused it to the edges in enough spots to hold it while I appliqued around it - easy peasy! Since it was a wall hanging, I didn't remove the fabric from behind the plate but it wouldn't have been hard to do since the whole thing wasn't fused down.

How would I fuse down the little circle in the center? Holy Moses, I'm not supposed to sew that little circle into the plate BEFORE I put it on the background am I??

Is it horrible to just leave that background fabric on?? I don't recall whether or not we trimmed the background square back of the Fan or not and I've never made a plate.

I did make the fan part today with the arc attached. I'm not happy. I've ripped it out and redone it several times. I've ripped out the bottom part of the fan blade seam to redo it and that just made it worse. I'm trying to figure out if it'll hold if I keep ripping and sewing or if I should just start over. I do have fabric left over....I just hope I'm not going to have to do that.

I have a friend that offered to help this weekend. I don't know if I can get a sitter, but I'm sure gonna try. If my stepdaughter lived a bit closer I'd consider bribery. I have to find out if hubby has to work overtime this weekend and when he'll be doing it. I might just not do anything else to mess it up further until I figure out if I have time this weekend or not.

M