The Irish Star

Hello Everyone,

The latest scrap quilt I've been working on is the Irish star. A pattern I found here, on the Wedding Dress Blues blog.

I am loving these stars!!!

 I made 28 of them, in 7 different colors (I have some blue ones too). I am glad the stars are done, as I was starting to get bored putting them together. lol. As much as I love them, repetition too many times is no fun ;)

Now I have to make 28 chain blocks. Here they are, all cut out and ready to go.

I know it's not a 'true' scrappy quilt, but I only wanted certain shades and I had to have them put in some kind of order. It's going to be a nice sized quilt, 76 x 85 without borders. I'm sure I'll add one or two of those though also.

Thanks for the great pattern, Deanna.

A special post for my daughters book

Hello Everyone,

It's summertime here, the weather is warm, the skies are sunny.. time for a dip in the creek, lake, or pool...where ever we can get our feet wet :)

My long time readers know that I am a homeschooling Momma. And as a very proud Mom today, I want to share a link with you.

My daughter, Rachael, is an unpublished author. She has written some young adults books and has things out at publishers and agents, trying to get a foot hold somewhere. She decided to put one of her books in ereader format and see how it goes.

Her books are full of fun and adventure for 9 to 14 yr olds, or anyone who enjoys a fun, adventure book.  The genre is sci-fi/fantasy. This story is about a boy and his dog.

If you enjoy young adult books or if you have a child that enjoys fantasy/adventure books, I highly recommend Rachael's books :)

Here is the link to her first one.

A Ship in the Sand

Shot down by space pirates and shipwrecked on a distant planet, the boy Tam and his dog Wolf must find a way to survive. The desert which they were shipwrecked in is beautiful but lonely, seemly empty of all human life.

But then Tam finds a strange space ship buried in the sand, and sees it as a way to get off of the planet and seek out his revenge on the space pirates.

Is the mysterious ship really empty, though? Lights are turned on when Tam did not switch them, and the computers give strangely human messages. The boy and his dog may not be as alone as they first thought they were..

If you read it and enjoy it, please feel free to pass the link on to others you feel might like it too.

Have a great day!

A mystery quilt and another scrappy quilt

Hello Everyone,

I hope your Summer (winter) is off to a good start. We've had Tstorms going thru here about once a day, but sunny and warm other wise. Its good for the garden and the water tanks, so I'm not complaining.

As I finished Big Brown Bear and don't have the right fabrics to finish some UFO's, I decided to make yet another scrappy quilt. This is another one by Deanna at Wedding Dress Blues. It's called Irish Stars. As I love Irish Chain quilts and I still have quite a bit of precut squares in my scrap bin, I decided...why not??!

Here is flying geese for the stars and the center of the stars. The white with orange dots is part of the background. I dug into my treasured Sunkissed Fabrics by Sweet Water for this quilt.

I choose to use darker/more vibrant hues in this quilt. I think these are all the colors I want to use, although when I do the chain blocks, I might have to add some other shades, as there are 25 squares in each chain block. At least it will wipe out all my 2.5" squares in the scrap bin :) 

Now really, I am not sure what made me choose this pattern, as I ALWAYS have issues with flying geese.. Sigh~ I guess the chain part won out this time. No matter what method I use, I usually end up ripping and resewing quite a few of the geese.

This time, I followed the directions of Deanna and used a 2.5"x 4.5" rectangle for the background and 2.5" squares for the 'wings'. Using the stitch and flip method to put them together. 

You put one square on the end of the rectangle and sew diagonally from corner to corner. I don't draw a line on little squares like this, I just 'eyeball' it.

Then I cut the corner off, using a 1/4" seam.

This time, I want to keep the triangle with the background triangle, so I sewed them together right away, chain stitching them, doing one color at a time (there are 7 colors).

Then you sew the other square to the other side, cut with a 1/4" seam.

Now I get to redo almost half of them. SIGH~ BUT, it used up a bunch of scrap squares, so all is good.

I also have started a new mystery quilt over on my forum, Quilting around the world. My long time readers will know how much I love a good mystery :) Here are the fabrics I am using.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!