Free Small Dahlia block templates

Thank you all for voting for my quilt in HST Festival organised by Canoe Ridge Creations. I won the grand prize!

I was overwhelmed by all your comments (both here and on Flickr) about my 'Windswept Blossom' quilt top. Thank you so much! Many of also asked how I did sew the dahlia in the middle. 

Dziekuje za wszelkie glosy w konkursie oddane na moj quilt. Udalo sie! Zajelam 1sze miejsce! Bardzo goraco dziekuje za wszelkie komentarze na temat quiltu. Bardzo sie ciesze, ze sie wam podoba. Wiele osob pytalo mnie, jak uszylam kwiat w srodku.

So I prepared a pattern with the templates for you. Unfortunately, I cannot guide you through the whole process, as I don't plan to sew another dahlia at the moment, and when I was actually sewing, I didn't make any photos. This is the pattern from EQ7. I coloured the dahlia in a way that you get a fresh and a bit transparent look. Traditionally, as all the little pieces have curved edges, all the tiny elements are cut separately:

Wiec przygotowalam dla was wzor dalii. Nie mam niestety zdjec z procesu szycia (zawsze zapominam o aparacie podczas szycia, a jak go nie mam pod reka, to i nie robie zdjec). Wzor to mala dalia, kolory dobralam w programie Electric Quilt 7. Tradycyjnie, kazdy maly element jest wycinany oddzielnie, bo kazdy maly kawalek dalii ma zakrzywione krawedzie:

I did it a bit differently. I divided the flower into parts, like those below. The long sides remain curved, but the short perpendicular lines are straight (you can clearly see it on the template, those pieces below are copied from the main design from EQ7, so they are still curvy). As you can see, the dahlia is built from 16 such parts, plus the small dresdens in the middle. 

Ja uszylam ja troche inaczej. Podzielilam kwiat na czesci (takie jak widac na obrazku ponizej). Dlugie krawedzie nadal sa zakrzywione, ale krotkie prostopadle linie sa proste (widac to w pliku pdf ze wzorem, te czesci na dole sa skopiowane z gornego obrazka). Jak sie dobrze przyjzycie, dalia jest zbudowana z 16 takich kawalkow i malych dresden plates w srodku.

 

You can download the free templates HERE.

Darmowy wzor do sciagniecia jest TU.

First, you have to choose your colourway (you can also change the appearance of the dahlia by changing the overall position of the coloured fabrics). If you want to do it like I did it, you need to print the templates: 16 flower pieces (the fabric pieces have to be paper pieced on them), 16 little dresden blades (for them I used english paper piecing, it's much easier for hand sewing) and 1 surrounding piece (it goes around the circle), which you need to copy on fabric 4 times. 

You can see, that the position of the colours on dahlia is repeating itself. For the main body of the block you will need 2x8 pieces in the colourway shown on the picture below:

Jesli chcecie uszyc dalie w takich kolorach jak ja, musicie wydrukowac 16  czesci kwiatu (materialy sa do nich doszyte metoda paper piecing'u), 16 dresden plates (ja zszywalam je recznie metoda zwana english paper piecing, tak jak sie zszywa hexagony, z papierkiem w srodku; wybralam 2 kolory materialu na dresden plates, wiec z kazdego wycielam po 8 kawalkow) i kawalek, ktory otacza kolo (trzeba go odrysowac 4x na materiale). 

Przygotowujecie metoda PP po 8 kawalkow takich jak pokazano ponizej (ten uklad kolorow da wam taki efekt jak w moim quilcie):

You just paper piece them and then trim along the curved edges. After removing the paper the tricky part starts. You have to sew curves, alternating the pieces. Once the darker one, then the one with more white. And so on, and so on, untill you finish the whole circle. Then the dresdens in the middle. I had sewn them by hand, as it was much easier. I also did not join them in the middle, but cut the ends and hand sew the circle at the center part. That's also much easier then joining ends of 16 little dresden blades together. The last part is the surrounding fabric which squares your dahlia block. I first sew all the 4 pieces together and then sew the circle in (I was posting some links to sewing circles HERE).

Po uszyciu PP wszystkich 16 kawalkow, trzeba je zszyc razem. Szycie po luku nie jest latwe i jesli jeszcze go nie probowaliscie, polecalabym pocwiczyc na niechcianych kawalkach materialu. Kawalki zszywamy naprzemiennie. Raz jasniejszy, raz ciemniejszy, az polaczymy kolo. Potem trzeba doszyc male dresden plates w srodku. Ja przyszywalam je recznie i nie zszywalam wszystkich razem w srodku, tylko obcielam konce, a na zakonczenie naszylam na srodek kolko. Czesci dookola dalii najpierw zszylam razem, a potem wszylam kolo (linki do tutkow jak wszyc kolka sa w TYM poscie).