The very first quilt I made was for our bed. We used it until it fell apart. It was completely made by hand, so that may have had something to do with it’ demise. Since then, I haven’t had a quilt on my bed. I have one on the bed in the guestroom. It’s a scrappy quilt, using many fabrics I’ve had for a while. I kept thinking that the one I make for my bed has to be super special.
Then I got over myself and decided it was time. I have been watching The Missouri Star Quilt company tutorials on YouTube. So far I’ve made a baby quilt. As fun as they are to watch, I’m not looking to make a quilt in an afternoon. Then along came The Checkered Dresden Quilt. I would have moved on, but Evildemondevildog went ahead and made his version. I gave in, I ordered the ruler and a jelly roll of bright colorful fabric.
Recently I won a half jelly roll, the colors close enough, yet different enough. So I set to work.
Sew four strips together, mixing and matching but not thinking too hard.
Bright, fun and plenty of contrast.
Next step, cutting all those strips into wedges. I normally don’t work like an assembly line. But I followed instructions here.
The next step was to sew the top of the blades in order to create the point.
At this point, I went back to my own comfort zone. I built each plate individually. The instructions were to sew pairs, then groups of four and then using five groups of four, create the circle. Couldn’t do it, I found it easier to pay attention, so I wouldn’t get a red next to red, or brown next to brown. 
After a while, I realized that was futile, so I just made sure there was contrast. These plates are so bright, colorful and scrappy, it’s the overall impression that will matter, not the details. Which means that yes, I tried to make sure the seams match, but where they didn’t, they didn’t.
And then it was off to Michael Levine’s to find the background fabric. In the tutorial, the background is white, with a print border all around the quilt. Also, from one jelly roll, you get nine plates since I added twenty-two more stripes I will end up with fifteen. I don’t want a square quilt, so I will be working with twelve blocks and might incorporate the remainder in the outer border.
This is what I came home with. Soon I will show you how I plan to put this all together.