I recently shared the Dresden Plates made by my daughter and me.
She made her’s at my mom’s house. I had made my center and was hand appliqueing it on when Emma came in with her plate.
I looked at her center…. then I looked at my center.
Doh!
Her center was perfectly round.
My center was not.
That’s because she made it with my mom. So I got on the phone to find out the method she had used to make it.
Here’s how she makes them… and the method I’ll use from here on out.
You’re going to need your fabric of course, a hot iron, fabric starch, and a template for your circle.
I’m using a template from Karen Kay Buckley’s Bigger Perfect Circles
You can also easily cut out a template out of poster board or the type of cardboard on the back of a notebook.
I traced my circle around my template on the back of my fabric using a pencil. Be sure to leave a quarter inch space around the template for cutting out.
Cut around your circle leaving about a 1/4 inch or so.
Spray a little of your starch into the lid of the spray starch.. it makes it easy to work with.
You can use a brush or Q-tip, but my finger worked just as great. Dip your finger in the starch and dab it around the outside of your circle.
Stick your template back in the center.
This part was hard for me to photograph because you really need two hands. But move the tip of the iron around your circle, pushing your fabric up around the template until the fabric goes tightly around the template forming a perfect circle.
Don’t worry as long as you don’t leave the iron sitting on the template it’s doesn’t have any trouble with the heat.
It’s now easy to remove the template from the center of your circle… unlike when you use the stitch around method.
Pin it to your project and hand or machine applique it into place.
Easy, perfect circles every time.
Now I’m wishing I had used a happy yellow circle in the center of my pillow!
To unpick or not to unpick… that is the question.