I have made a few Dresden Plates. I generally prefer to applique them by hand. When I ramrodded a Dresden Plate fund raiser, most of the blocks were machine appliqued. I don't think the difference mattered to anyone. (the quilt took a blue ribbon, BTW) In case you don't already know this, DP is one of those blocks that are MUCH better done with PPing.

Removing the back is mainly important for hand quilting.

Thanks everyone for your help! I am going to machine stitch them to the background. I was not excited about removing the extra from the back and now I know why that is done.....I am NOT hand quilting this one!

Thanks again - I appreciate the input!