Merry Christmas

 Wishing you all a very Blessed and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Thank you for sticking around and reading my posts.

Thanks for stopping by,

Dorian

Country Irish chain and Thanksgiving

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all enjoying this time before the holidays rush in at us. I love this time of year. The weather has cooled, we've had some rain, the fires are out and the smoke is gone.

In Oct, I received a 5 yrd package of fabric goodness from a friend. It was a surprise gift on my quilting board, QATW, for making the first post in Oct of a finish. We have lots of fun on that quilting board :)

The fabric is Secret Garden by Meags and Me for Clothworks. Here's what the whole line looks like.

I love this line, the colors are so lovely. I instantly thought that my bundle had to be made into an Irish chain quilt, one of my favorites.

The yellow I had in my stash and the binding I had to buy, as I HAD to have a light teal binding and I didn't have any ;) I love prairie points and haven't used them in a quilt in quite a long while, so I had to put some in.

I had some soft gray flannel in my stash, so used that for the backing. Here you can see that I did some feathers in a circle and some flowers along the 'chains'.

First time doing feathers!! In over 20 years of quilting, and I've never quilted them before. It went better than I thought, but obviously I still need practice. Once this quilt is washed, it will hopefully take a few of those 'rough' spots out ;) 

And with that, I will leave you with wishing you a very Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving. Things aren't all that great in many places, but we still have a lot to be thankful for. Wishing you the best.

Thanks for stopping by,

Dorian

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From the Heart blog hop, my day

Hello All,

Welcome to my day on the From the Heart blog hop. And a big thank you to Carol, of Just let me quilt, for another great blog hop.

People who craft and create always put a lot of thought and love into their work. Whether they are creating for their work or as a hobby. If you don't love what you do, then it's hard to do it. So everything I make is 'from the heart' and I had to think for  awhile before I figured out what I wanted to show today.

This year has been very hard on so many people. Besides the whole covid issue, a lot of people are having more health issues, there is too many huge fires burning the West, lots more storms wrecking havoc in the middle and Eastern states, just to name a few. So this year I am trying to spread a bit more love to my friends. I'm sending out hugs.

Mug rugs make great little gifts. You can personnalize them to the reciever, which is always fun.

This is another one I sent out. And it has a funny story. I grabbed the pink squares to go with the black and white because I thought that would be pretty, I really liked it. Then I found the awesome rainbow print, perfect, and decided, what the heck, I'll use pink on the back too. But the whole time I was making this with a particular person in mind, I kept thinking "I hope she likes pink"..... turns out, it's her favorite color :) Must be serendipity ;)

The next two are a little bigger, you can still use them for a mug and a plate of goodies, or put it on the wall or whatnot. This one was for my best quilting buddy, Pat at the scrapatch, she blogged about it here.

This one was for an old friend 'in memory of..', her Mom had passed, and her Mom loved birds.

All these projects are great for using up your scraps. The top hearts one was made with my 1.5" squares, and this one was made with 1.5" strips. I just can't seem to throw these little bits out.

No matter the size of your project, or even if it's just a few words on a sheet of paper. Sending out heartfelt gifts and words are so important. Everyone likes to feel they are special to someone, everyone likes to know that people like and respect them, everyone enjoys having friends and receiving something special.

 As the Beatles say, "Love is all we need.." :) so we just need to "Let the love flow...".

Have a lovely day, and don't forget to stop and see all the other beautiful things people are making. Here are the other bloggers sharing my day, you can find the full list at Carol's.

October 26

Creatin' in the Sticks

Ms P Designs USA

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Websterquilt

Selina Quilts

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Quilting Gail

Scrapdash

Ridge Top Quilt

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

That Fabric Feeling

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

Disappearing 9 patch, and a finish

Hello Everyone,

It's crazy how fast this year is going. The older I get, the faster it seems to go.

I've been working a lot with my scraps this year. It feels good to get them used up.

Yesterday I pulled out my 2 1/2" squares to play with. Sorting them by color, dark and light.

I am making a disappearing 9 patch. You take a simple 9 patch. And cut it in the middle on both sides.

Then you have 4 blocks that look like this. That you can switch around..

Turning this way and that...

Until you have a design you like...

You can mix and match them too...

I still have a lot of 9 patches to make, so am not sure how I am going to make the final layout. Stay tuned :)

Here is another finish I did in Sept. This one was finished right at the end of the month. I'm calling it mosaic tiles.

I was fascinated by this triangle, made by using a square and 2 triangles.

You put four of them together and you get this block.

I'm sure this has a name, but I don't know what it is. I just that it was a fun block to make. Now that the quilt is finished, I wished I would of made it bigger. This one is 44 x 50. I think the two borders really set it off. I'm sure a little girl somewhere will love it, it's going in my donate pile.

It's a good thing I have lots of scraps to play with, as there are lots of great scrappy quilts to make!

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Summer Quilts

 Hello All,

I've been working on a lot of scrappy quilts and UFO's this summer. I have 3 or 4 small quilts tops all put together from UFO blocks that have been sitting around, some for quite a few years. 

Like this cute quilt. I'm calling it Butterfly lane. Because of these butterflies on the background fabrics.

This top was put together a long time ago, maybe 9? something like that. The four big squares were mini-round robins a few of my friends and I did together. Then I came up with a design to put them all together in this quilt. It's 66" square.

Earlier this year I worked on this scrappy quilt. Using 2.5" squares from my scrap box.

I just finished it this morning. It has a nice, flannel backing. It's 56" x 70". It's called Film at Five and it's a free pattern from Wedding Dress Blues.

I also made this sweet table mat for a swap my quilting friends and I did. It's a pattern from my best quilting buddy, Pat at the Scrapatch. You unsnap the petals and have individual mug rugs :)

I'm doing really good this year getting some things at least put into tops, if not completely finished. And I've been using up a lot of scraps :) 

Now.... what am I going to work on next?!

Have a fantastic day!

Magic Stars

Hello All,

Hope you are all having a terrific summer (winter). We've been enjoying going to the lake a lot this year. The lake is about a 45 min drive from the house, so not too bad, especially since it's a lovely drive thru the mtns and forests.

Have you all seen the magic stars pattern? I just love playing with it. You take two pieces of fabric, cut them a few times, mix up the colors and resew them. Too fun! 

I didn't have 10" squares to work with, but I did have a big pile of 6.5" squares. So I guessed my cuts would be at 2.5" and thats what I did. 

I only did a few this way, then I decided that the middle triangle was too small, I wanted to see if I can make the three triangles all roughly the same size. So I experimented with cutting sizes.

Here you can see I cut one set at 2", one at  2 1/4 ", one at 2 1/2" and one at 2 3/4".

I found the 2 1/4" works out best for the triangles. So my original squares are 6 1/2" and I made the cuts at 2 1/4". 

I made a pile of them, having fun picking out what fabrics to go together.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this yet, maybe make them into a table runner? or make more and put them in a lap sized quilt? 

I haven't decided on a layout yet, but I I think I am leaning towards this last one.

Then again.... maybe the first one??

We'll see... stay tuned :)

Sunshine blog hop

Hello, and welcome to my blog,

It's been a great few days of glorious Sunshine projects. Many thanks to Carla and her wonderful blog hops.

"Sunshine on my shoulders, makes me happy..."

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine..."

"I'm walking on sunshine... and don't it feel good!"

"It's going to be a bright, bright, sunshiny day"

"Here comes the sun, do-da-do-da... and I say, it's alright..."

" Good day sun shine, Good day sun shine..."

There are lots and lots of songs about sunshine and the sun. Sunshine makes you feel good, it brings warmth and growth, gives you free Vitamin D ;) I hope these projects of mine make you smile and feel good too.

I made this lone star not long ago. You can read about it here.



When I was picking out colors for a mystery quilt my quilt forum did in May, this beautiful butterfly fabric was one of my picks.

Here's the mystery quilt top. It's hard to see the butterflies, but they are there ;)

Pattern by Heather long of Coffee and quilts

And while I was busy choosing fabrics for this quilt, Carla announced the Stitching Sunshine blog hop.

And I knew that I needed to use those butterflies with that Lone star and make a quilt with it. 

This imagine popped into my head when I saw the word 'sunshine' and  I had to figure out how to bring that image out.

I wanted to make the quilt bigger, but I ran out of fabrics and I'm not sure what that I could match the gray, it doesn't have a name on the selvedge. 

And a few weeks later, my forum had a virtual camp week. That was a lot of fun. Games, recipes, a small mystery quilt, and lots of chat. I again ended up picking something yellow.

So lots of yellow, sunshine-y goodness being sewn lately. I hope you've enjoyed looking at my projects. Please be sure and visit the other blogs and see the wonderful creations that have been made.

MooseStashQuilting

PamelaQuilts

Podunk Pretties

Homespun Hannah's Blog
Ridge Top Quilts - you are here
Words & Stitches
Storied Quilts
Ms P Designs USA
selina quilts

Have a lovely day!

Captivating Color

Hello All,

Hope everyone is doing well, staying safe and healthy. We are good here. We are getting some much needed rain :)

Isn't it interesting how some colors just 'do it' for us? We see a color or two and just smile and think how lovely they are. For me, gray just does it for me, paired up with orange, magenta, blues or greens, just about any other color. I love using gray as a neutral, and often use it for my backgrounds in my quilts.....

Does anyone remember this book?



I loved this book when I was a kid and made sure it was part of our library when I was pregnant with our first born. All my kids can probably recite it without looking at the book... lol, along with a lot of other of the Cat in the Hat beginner reader books.

What does this have to do with captivating colors you ask? Well...  I started this Film at Five quilt last summer. (the link takes you to the blog that has the pattern)

By Oct I just had all of the 16 patch blocks made, then I set it aside until I could get some gray background fabric.

Fast forward till last week. I had bought the gray fabric a few months ago and finally decided to get the quilt top together.

And....

Because I made this quilt top, and because I used this beautiful gray fabric.

I decided I needed a  border  on my scrappy Irish stars quilt top.

And because I used this gray with this orange, and because I mitered the corners.

I had to play with the scraps from those borders, that already had a diagonal cut in them, which reminded me of another favorite block,

The Lonestar.

Isn't this lovely??! Or maybe you aren't too much of a gray person, thats ok, I love it enough for everyone :) 

I haven't decided quite what I am going to do with it, but if you come back in mid-late June, when I'm joining Carla from Creating in the sticks, in a blog hop, you'll find out.





Have a great day everyone!!

Another Bear quilt finished

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all staying safe and busy at home. I know I have lots of things to keep me busy right here. 

Spring is in the air, the trees are all in full bloom, the Red Bud and lilac is blooming, as is the iris's and lupine. The grass is green, it's all so beautiful.

I started this bear quilt back in 2016. Lorna was having a quilt along for her bear pattern, and I had just boughten a 10" stack of Robert Kaufman's fusion line (I love this fabric!).

So a few weeks ago, I pulled it out of the bin and decided to get it quilted up. It was fairly quick, the quilt is 42x48, so I was able to get it finished in a weekend.

Here's a few closeups.

You can see my minimal quilting. A bit in the paws and thru the sashing.

Isaiah, my youngest son, has claimed it for his bed :)

I think I'll quilt up one of my Irish stars next...maybe... I have so many to choose from! :)

Have a great day all.