An art tote

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend. With lots of friends, family, food....and sewing! LOL.

I'm linking up with Jenna at SewHappyGeek. Thanks Jenna.

And with Karen at sewmanyways. Thanks Karen!






My Daughter is an avid writer and drawer. She has books on how-to-draw animals, people, and other things. She writes short stories and in a journal. She always is toting around books, paper, pens, etc. So, I decided she needed a good art tote.

 I put thin cardboard in between the outer and inner fabric, instead of batting. To make it nice and stiff. It has two sturdy handles, and two zippers to keep everything inside.

 A large pocket, a smaller pocket and a zip pouch.

So it holds quite a bit of stuff. The pockets are nice and roomy. And it's made with some tougher broadcloth type stuff.

Let me know if anyone would like a tutorial on it.

Have a great day!


 Thanks for stopping by Dorian

Happy Fourth!

 HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

 I hope you have a wonderful day.

Thanks for stopping by Dorian

A bit of cleaning, and a finished top

 I decided it was time to spifey up the blog a little bit.  I changed the background, just for a change. Tried out some different styles, but just preferred staying with the set-up how it is, for now. I want to look around some more and see if I can do it differently at some point.

I added a small slideshow, showing off a few of my recent, favorite items. And because I wanted a slide show, I also joined Flikr and have a place to put pictures. So far, there is only the same 8 that are in the slide show, but I'll add to it as I go along. You can find it under my blog title name, on the Flikr site.

Just little things,  but it's fun to mess with sometimes.

Remember me telling you I wasn't too happy with the light   blue I used on my carpenters wheel top? Here's a picture, you can see why I think that something else would of been better.

 The light blue and white with small flowers just almost blend together, making the dark blue look way out of place.

 But! the individual blocks I made came out the way I wanted them too, so that is good. I will redo it once I get some more specific fabric that I have slotted for this quilt.

Here's a few close-ups.

So what have you been up to?

 Thanks for stopping by Dorian

Bits and pieces

 It's the bits and pieces that make up the quilt. I am working on a new pattern.  Want to see the bits and pieces?

They all need a good session with the iron....of course. LOL

And I wish now that I would of gone with a solid or TonT instead of the light blue/flowers. It's a bit busy for my taste.

 BUT, all the pieces are coming out just like I wanted them too :) I had my birthday yellow fabrics (the Kaufman and Fig tree ones) in mind, when I made this. I just don't have enough of those to make it with. So, I will buy more, and make it in those pretty, soft yellows and pinks also.


See this?? Isn't it darling!? It is only a few inches tall, from bottom of cabinet to top of machine. And not much wider.

It was a birthday gift from my 16yr son :) I just love it! He has been having fun messing with some casting of various metals. And he loves to work with wood.

Hope you enjoyed the bits and pieces, I'll show more when it's finished.

What are you working on?


Thanks for stopping by Dorian

Around the Ridge

 Hello out there, hope you're having a beautiful sunny day. I thought you all might like to see some stuff that is growing on my Ridge.

Our peas, kale and spinach having been doing well.

A close up of the peas. These plants are a good 4+ft tall. We have some baby tomato plants, I think a few cukes, some beets, and various other little things doing well also. My dh and dd are the garderners :)

 One of the mint plants, we have two different kinds.

Some wild lilac, the Ridge is covered with them!

 And some of my beautiful roses...I have 10 plants, and love them all.

This one is huge!

And these ones are small, only a few inches in diameter.

 What's growing at your place?

Hope you've enjoyed my plants. Have a great day!



Thanks for stopping by, Dorian

Another this and that post...

 Hi ya'all, hope you are having a good Summer and enjoying the sunshine.

If you are looking forward to our mystery quilt on the Q&N, we have had to change it. So remark your calendars for July 30-31st.

I am a fairly new follower of 1choice4quilting.com. They are having another awesome giveaway right now, click here to check it out. I've noticed that Shawna and gang have a LOT of great giveaways, contests, great prices on their store, and plenty of fun. Hop on over and check them out.

Judi, at greenfairyquilts is also having a fantastic giveaway and sale prices on fat quarters. She does awesome quilting and darling patterns. Go check her out too.

As for me...I have been busy this week. I've done a post on an Octagonal table mat, over at the Q&N blog. I have finished the table mat and will have part 2 of this post up in a day or two. Here is the finished mat.

We've also celebrated a birthday this week, my lovely dd just turned 13....Sigh~ time is going by too quickly.

And, I've gotten two baby quilt patterns completed (typed up) and sent off to my testers....So exciting!! And scary...LOL.

So a busy week, enjoying all the sunshine too. Hope yours has been a good one.

OH, one more thing. I have posted two polls on the lefthand side of my screen. I would love for you to answer them. Follower or not :) Thanks!

Doing some linky goodness with Karen and H&M, buttons on the right....Thanks Ladies!


Thanks for stopping by, Dorian

Lazy Summer weekend

 Summer has finally arrived to our Ridge! I love Summer here. This week will be in the high 70s to low 80s. PERFECT! And by August we'll be seeing the upper 90s, but rarely will we go over 100. YES! I hated the Summers down in the valley. The older I get, the more I hate the heat.

The roses are blooming!

I don't know what this is, it sure is neat though!

I have been working on patterns. I'm trying to get them typed up, all nice and pretty. And I have more rolling around my brain, trying to come out.

I have tutorials I want to do....

I want to play with my new fabric....

Am trying to wait patiently for Jess's new mystery quilt...I love her quilts!

Here's the sewing I've been doing. But Shhhh! it's a secret, can't show you all, yet ;)

And a new tutorial on the Q&N.

What are you doing with your Summer?

Thanks for stopping by, Dorian

An early Birthday....

 At least, that is how is seems :)

Yesterday, family and I went into Chico for some running around: the library and food shopping mostly. Well dh drove up to the quilt store and told me to go spend some money, how could I refuse?! LOL, he's such a sweety. This is the second time in a row he has done this, that BOTH times the quilt store was having an awesome sale. Yesterday's sale was 40-50% off the whole store!

I came home with these pretties. A few Kaufman and a few Joanna Figtree.

And then today, the mailman  called and said he had a couple of packages for me :)

The first one was from my Dear friend Pat. Some lovely Sunkissed, a few from Joel Dewberry (I think) and ...ummm...I am REALLY bad at remembering names and such...unless I've been drooling over certain fabric for awhile, I just can't remember...anyways..

The are all SO LOVELY. Thank you so much Pat :)

The second package came from my Dear Grandma, the same one I made a handbag for in this post. Sadly, Grandma says she can't do quilting anymore (she is in her late 80s) and so she asked if I wanted some of her fabric. This is a fun box of stuff! Some older, some newer, all lovely.

Thank you Grandma, I love you.

 And my birthday is still a few weeks away ;)

I hope you are having a lovely day too.

*On a side note. I was changing/adding a few things to a few of my tutorials yesterday. And one decided to move it's self up to the front of the line, LOL. So that's why I had a re-post of a tute yesterday. I'll just leave it alone, it's not harming anything there :)

Thanks for stopping by, Dorian

Set in seams

I am doing  a lot of set-in seams in this scrappy project of mine. The 'background' for my star, is all set-in seams (vs. appliquing the star on a big background piece) and then I will be doing some more 8 pointed stars in the border corners, so there will be even more set-in seams.

But they have never bothered me. I know some people struggle with them, and some people are just learning. So I thought I'd do a quick tutorial to show you how easy it can be.

Piece A is the star that I am working on, Piece B is the pieces I am setting-in.

 The first thing you want to remember is, when sewing piece 1 and piece 2 together (the two pieces that make up piece A), make sure you STOP a 1/4" before the edge, and take a few back stitches.

Then take your piece B, and pin it right sides together with piece A.  Sew down your seam, making sure to STOP 1/4" before the edge, taking a back stitch (the pin in this picture shows were I pinned piece 2 out of the way, so I wouldn't sew over it).

 Now take your pin out of piece 2, and match it with the other side of piece B. Making sure you keep piece A out of the way.

 Here is what the pieces look like in the middle, where all the seams are meeting.

 Here's the part that is tricky. You want your needle to go directly in front of and as close as possible to, the seam you just stitched. If you go in front too far you get a small hole in your piece, if you go back to far or on top of the seam stitches, then you get a small pucker.

I took the foot off my machine for a minute, to show you exactly where your needle should go, when sewing this seam.

 Now just sew down that seam, you don't have to stop before the edge this way, just when you are coming to the middle where all the seams meet.

Turn your piece over, and TA-DA, a perfect ..or near perfect :) ..set-in seam.

Hope this was helpful to you!

Thanks for stopping by, Dorian
©Copyright D. Lucas, 2011 This is my tutorial. You are welcome to use any of my tutorials for personal use. You are not permitted to use my pictures or my words without linking back to the original and giving me credit for them.

HST's...or half square triangles.

 A pile of HST's, made with Lily & Will, from Anne Sutton.

Mixed with a little  Hydrangea.

I think they go lovely together...

Of course, there is ALWAYS a pile of this when I do HST's..

 Is the trimming worth it??! Oh yes! It makes your squares nice and pretty, so they can sew together beautifully..

The Hydrangea fabric is what I am using for our "It's too pretty to cut challenge", going on at the Q&N forum. So I wont be showing you more of this project, till sometime in July. Our projects are due by July 31st. Then they'll be judged. These challenges are always fun.

What have you been working on?

Have a great day, and...

 Thanks for stopping by, Dorian