Sweetie Pie Sew Along: Pear Block

When I signed up to be on the Sweetie Pie Sew Along tour a few months back, I decided to go with the pear block because a) it looked simple and b) my husband (who loves to work on his vegetable garden and small fruit orchard in his spare time) has been informed that our part of Texas is pear country. It just seemed like the way to go...

Lori has a such a genius for themes in her books and patterns. I love the way she took a traditional Dresden plate block and put her own spin on things: i.e. the Dresden circles are "pies" which we "fill" with the fruit applique...so clever. We were asked to use Riley Blake/Penny Rose fabrics for our block, and I had a ball picking out a rainbow of prints for mine. It was so hard to narrow it down to what you see here!

I never would have guessed that a Dresden would turn out to be one of my favorite quilt blocks. It always looked too complicated to me in the past, but I've been surprised by how forgiving it is. There's really no stress over matching up seams, and since I do all my embroidery and applique by machine, it comes together pretty quickly. Using a cream colored thread works so well on light colored fabrics because it easily blends into the print and reflects the background color, looking as though you took the time to match the color of your thread to each fabric. I stitched everything down onto a linen square -- patchwork and linen are ALWAYS a match made in heaven -- and it makes another fun pillow to add to my growing stash.

I couldn't resist adding a little apple tag to the right side of the pillow to keep the fruit theme going.

You can get the whole scoop on the Sweetie Pie Quilt at Lori's blog right here as well, along with a peek at the bazillion amazing projects she always seems to have in the works.

Happy sewing, friends!