I’ve made some good progress on the Dresden Bee quilt lately! This week, I managed to cut all the background pieces for the Dresden blocks, and I finally made a firm decision on the layout—always a big milestone. I’ve also figured out how I want to piece the giant Dresden block together with the scrappy patchwork border panels I’ve been working on.

Right now, I have five completed panels, each framed with a scrappy border. But here’s the twist: those patchwork panels ended up feeling so small next to the 24″ Dresden block, which truly lives up to its “giant” title! The scale difference really challenged my layout plan.

In fact, I originally cut the border strips for those panel pieces a little too narrow. Once I laid everything out, it just didn’t feel balanced next to the large Dresden. So I decided to go back and recut the borders, this time making them wider to better anchor the design. It was a little extra effort, but totally worth it!