A very Blessed and Merry Christmas to all!

Wishing everyone the best for this coming year. Thank you to all who come and visit my little blog.

Finally a finish!

 Hello Everyone,

It seems I blinked, and the Summer has gone. Although the weather hasn't taken the hint just now. We have had a few rain storms and cooler weather, on and off, so that is nice. I'm ready for Fall, for cooler temps, wearing sweaters, eating hot soups and stews. 

I finally have a large finish to show you. I have a few more tops to show off as well. This is what I've been doing crafty wise in my little part of the world. Not a lot, as I'm still not up to par health wise. But at least I can still do some sewing.

This is a Swap that my online quilt group and I did in the Spring. I made the bird block for everyone and these are the blocks I got in return. Isn't it sweet?

And this is the Summer mystery quilt Heather does for us occasionally. This is a fun quilt, so bright and cheerful.

And heeereee is my finish :) This is Irish Stars by Wedding Dress Blue. Mine is a large Queen sized, haven't got the exact dimensions, but it hangs over my queen sized mattress a few inches on each side.

This is the yummy back. I bought it thru Missouri star quilt company on one of their excellent sales.

I messed up with my quilting design though 😥. It was supposed to be an orange peel design, that goes along the seams like this:

But instead, I did two whole rows, diagonally, like this:

I was NOT going to take out those two lines. You can see them if you look in the pictures where the sun is shining on the quilt. So, I am just pretending they are leaves and did all the squares that way 😁. I quilted large flowers in the stars and a mix of flowers and leaves along the border.

This pattern is awesome as it uses up lots of scraps. I used my favorite Sweet Water fabric, Sunkissed, for the background stars. You can't tell in the photos mostly, but the fabric has different colors in it, it's not just an off white solid. There is pinks, oranges and grays mostly. 

So that is what I've been up to over the Summer. And now it's on to Christmas projects!

Thanks for stopping by,

Dorian

Happy Mothers day, finishes and WIPs

Hello Everyone,

A Very Happy Mothers Day out there to you all, whether you celebrate or not, I am wishing you all a lovely day.

Happy Spring! or Winter, where ever you happen to be. It's lovely here, the grass is green, the flowers are blooming and trees leafing out. We are having warm, sunny days, and some cool, rainy days. So a nice mix.

I finished my DD's purse awhile back, and haven't shown it off. So here it is.

I also finished this wall hanging for my chiropractor, she loves it :) and has it hanging at her place of employment.

I've been working on these economy blocks as brainless sewing. I don't have enough energy to finish quilting on my quilt right now, so have been doing this between other projects.

Just using up pieces in my scrap box. I will sit down a few times a year and cut up my scrap into usable squares. My square box was getting full so I took these out.

The middle squares start at as 1.5", then I use 2.5" squares cut on one diagonal for the next round and 3" squares for the next. I don't know if I will keep going with these, or if I will just make a table runner with the ones I have done so far. We'll see how bored I get with it, lol.

And I made these birds for a swap on my forum. These were fun to make, but the pattern was wrong on some of it's measurements. Thankfully I had made a few test blocks, so I was able to figure it out so the blocks measure 12.5" unfinished.  I got the pattern charmingtribe.com

Thanks for stopping by, have a lovely day!

Dorian 

Spock the Dog

 Hello Everyone,

I hope your Spring is going well. I was walking around outside today and am starting to see Spring flowers. We have some daffadills and iris's blooming, and our RedBud is almost ready to burst in bloom. We haven't had a lot of snow this year, so I am wondering if that means we are going to have a hot summer, blah.

This is a young Spock, he was born April 5th... 18 yrs ago. He had these black lines over his eyes, kind of slanted, that looked like Spocks, from the USS Enterprise, eyebrows. So that is why we named him Spock. As he grew older, those black brows faded.

He was a stubborn, hard headed dog who only wanted to run around the neighbor and enjoy himself. He chased sheep, and encouraged our girl dogs to run off with him to raise havoc.

But he was a love too. He slept on the end of our bed, caught any mouse that dared to enter the house, stood by my dh's side thru his mending when he broke his legs and later when he had a heart operation.

He loved the snow, and would run and play in it as long as I would let him. He chased snowballs and buried his face in the snow trying to eat them.

We would take him up into the mountains with us, and he would run and chase deer and squirrels for hours.

My sweet Spock died today... on his 18th birthday. 

Rest in peace my sweet friend.

Thank you for stopping by.

Dorian

Well into the new year

Hello All,

It's well into the New Year, and I've yet to make a post. My poor little blog... I hope there is some readers still out there :)

Medical issues are not getting any better, and my sewing time seems to be dwindling :( so I don't have a lot to show, but a bit.

I'm making a new purse for my DD. She likes to use ones the straps go across the chest, and she doesn't need a large one.  I'm enjoying working with these faux leathers. The off white with flowers is a linen, that will be a pocket. She has a pair of black moccasins with fringe down the sides and wanted some on her purse as well.

I've been slowly quilting my Irish stars quilt that I made a few years ago. Pattern my Wedding Dress Blues. I love this pattern! This is the second one I've made and I am thinking of doing another. This one has some of my beloved Sunkissed line, from Sweetwater, in it.

I decided to put that quilt on hold while I whip up a small wall hanging for my chiropractor. I've been seeing her for quite a few years now, and she helps me immensely. She is moving into a new building soon, so this will be a 'welcome to a new place' type of gift. 

It's another of my favorite patterns, any and all who have been to my site often will have seen many of these Lone stars over the years :) I made this one with a few pieces from a jelly roll.

So I have a few things to peck on now and then in the sewing room, and that always makes me happy.

Thanks for stopping by, have a lovely day,

(Sorry for the small pictures, I don't know how to work with blogger pictures anymore, another reason I don't blog as much. SIGH~)

Dorian

Christmas

 A very Merry and Blessed Christmas to you all. I hope your day is wonderful.

Thanksgiving, a new quilt top and a sandwhich

 Hello Everyone,

I'm wishing my American readers an early Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you have a lovely day, filled with family, friends and good food.... even if you don't celebrate this holiday :) My family loves traditional Thanksgiving food, so my dd and I will be quite busy. We bake our pies on Wed and do traditional turkey, rolls, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, corn, cranberries, salad and sometimes green beans or stuff mushrooms on Thursday. Our table will be groaning! 

I didn't mean to be gone for so long. One day it was early July and I was just puttering around, getting into Summer routine here in our logging business household, and the next thing I know it's Sept. And then BAMM it's the end of November. I don't know how the time got away so quickly.

We did have an adventure in late July/early Aug. and I guess that threw the time off for us all. The Park fire came close to our house, it burned soooo many acres and sooo quickly! We packed up our most precious things and convoyed out of here at 9pm on a Friday night. We went camping with our dogs at the logging site, so my family was still able to work and we had a camper and tents to live in. The best thing about camping was swimming in the lake whenever I wanted! So we have a lot to be thankful for this year. Our house and property were saved, we lost only some of our chickens, but not all of them. We had a place to go, even if was camping out, my gang still worked and we were all together.

But my health hasn't been as good this year. My energy level is low and I tire and get achy so very easily. I have an immune disease that is causing all my issues and I'm trying to get things together without using a lot of drugs. And it's a challenge.

But, I have done a bit of quilting/sewing. Let me show you, I left you with snaps of some small lone stars I was putting together. Some in blue:

Some in dusky pink:

Then I made these sashing strips:

I laid them all out on point, and the setting triangles are the light green as well. That blue background is very bright and the dusky pink helps to tone it down, but that green really helps to bring the two together nicely I think.

It makes a nice sized lap quilt, or a childs quilt. I might put a border on, I might not. All of the stars and the colorful patches in the sashings are from my scrap box, woohoo! ... although you can't tell as I have sooo many scraps! LOL... For now it got put away as I feel like quilting one of my very favorite tops.

I made this Irish Stars top (pattern) a year or so ago, and have always loved it. Earlier in the year I bought enough backing for 2 quilt tops, and this is the first one I'm going to quilt. I'm pinning it now. (For those who don't know, that's whats called a sandwhich: top, batting and backing being pinned/basted together.)

I got about 3/4 thru this and noticed that a bit of batting, almost in the center of the quilt, is bumped up a bit. SIGH~ that means I have to unpin part of it, smooth out the batting and repin. What  a pita! So I'll hopefully get to that sometime this week and finish pinning it.

Thanks for stopping by and sticking to the end of my long post. Blogger is being fussy, so I hope I can post this.

Dorian

A bit of mish mash going on

 Hello Everyone,

Hope you all are well and enjoying your days. It's a typical dry, warm summer day here. The temps have been bouncing between the low 80s to mid 90s, so not TOO hot.... but hot enough!

I've been doing some of this and that for the past few months in the sewing room, not a lot, but some.

I finished Charlotte Hawks scrappy mystery quilt, the top that is. (Sorry for the indoor picture, but it's pretty windy outside right now.) This was A LOT of fun! Thank you Charlotte!

I had a squirrel pop up on my table a month or so ago too. This is Checkerboard, by Lori Holt. It's a small top, just right for a little girl. Another fun scrappy quilt.

I noticed my strip pile was getting out of hand, so I decided to use my 1.5" strips and make some small Lone stars. I love making Lone stars, and haven't made any in quite some time.

I'm having fun making these too! The not so fun part is the background, of course. Lots of Y-seams. Which I can do, they just aren't as fun as the stars :)

These finish up around 10" square. This background is actually quite bright, this picture is a little dark. And I wasn't sure if I wanted a whole quilt this color. So I pulled out a dusky pink and will alternate the pink and blue. I think it will look great.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other quilty news. I was slightly disappointed as I had ASSUMED something that wasn't right. I had read the Jolly Jabber (Fat Quarter news) and had thought that when they said the June box was "plain peachy keen", I was hoping that meant there was some of Cori Yoders yummy fabric by that name in it. I got the box today and found it was some lovely fabric by Fig tree and Co. instead. This box has some nice things in it, a fun ruler and pins/needles. So all is well and I am happy with this birthday gift to myself.  I haven't bought a Sew Sampler box in a few years.

My sweet friend Carol sent me a few much needed rulers (something I dont' often buy myself) and this pattern, which I have been wanting every since it came out!! Thank you again my friend.

This is Sweetwaters Hello Spring pattern. And all of you who know me, know I love these bright, happy Sweetwater colors. This pattern looks fun as it's a mix of regular piecing and applique/embroidery.

My DD bought me this book:

It's all about taking one pattern and making  a variety of different bags with it, depending on what materials you use and how you embellish it. You all know I love making bags, so this will be fun to read and work with. She also bought me some faux leather and some bag hardware. So a new bag will be in my future :)

Now, to just get into the sewing room more and get some things done!

Thanks for stopping by.

Dorian

Progress on two projects

 Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all having a nice Spring. Ours is pretty typical: snow, sun, Tstorms, sun, rain, repeat :) The flowers are all starting to bloom, the redbud is blooming as is the lavender. The grass is green and trees are leafing out. Such a beautiful time of year.

I've been steadily working on the Scrappy mystery quilt from Charlotte Hawks. She has been giving us clues once a month for the past four months. Here is my progress.

The lighter gray is the background. The bit darker gray and red is what she calls borders. I didn't use any gray/black or red in the blocks, so as not to distract with the background/borders the same color.

Block 1: That darker gray was supposed to be black, but... it isn't really.

Block 2:

Block 3: the lighter gray is the background

Block 4: The next few blocks will look similar, but have a few small differences.

Block 5:

Block 6:

We have one more block that is partial completed, finishing clue is next month, so I'll show it when it's done. Then I think we'll be putting it all together.

I have to say, I am having a LOT of fun with this quilt!! I have 3 small drawers that have my scraps that are less then 1/4 yrd, but bigger than 5". So I've been cutting triangles as I go. Trying to get a lot of variety. The only problem with that is....

I have MORE triangles now to deal with, ugh!! I have a baggy full of triangles, one day I keep telling myself I do something with them, but still haven't gotten around to it. Although I have saved a few patterns that deal with scrappy triangles.

The other pattern I'm working on is Edyta's birthday quilt. This is a series of 6" blocks, one a week for most of the year. With a few bonus blocks thrown in, so far they have been applique.

Blocks 1-6 (they all need to be pressed and trimmed)

Blocks 7-12

Blocks 13-16 plus one bonus block. Those sweet hearts is the bonus block, I haven't done the first bonus block yet.

I'm having a lot of fun with this quilt too. I've never done a sampler type quilt, but I am having fun picking out the fabrics for each block. The fabric is from Corey Yoder, and I really love this fabric line! The blue comes from one of her other lines, so it goes really well with the other colors.

So this is what I've been doing, mostly. Just puttering on these blocks and starting a few other little scrappy projects.

Have a great day, thank you for stopping by.

Dorian

On my sewing table

And what a messy table it is!  Hello Everyone,

As you can see, I have a few projects on going here. Having lots of fun with them all.

This one is the scrappy mystery project from Charlotte Hawks Quilts. This is only one of the blocks we have done so far.

I'm working on clue #3 right now. It's fun playing with all these scraps!

This lovely pile of fabrics is Buttercup and Slate, by Corey Yoder. And the bottom blue is from Corey also, it's from her Peachy Keen line. My best online quilting buddy, Pat from the scrapatch, gifted it to me :) It's the perfect background for those lovey grays, yellows and greens.

I'm using the above stack in Edyta Sitars birthday mystery quilt. Here is my stack of the first 10 blocks.

Edyta is doing one block a week, for most the year. So my first sample type quilt. There is some embroidery blocks thrown in as bonus blocks too.

This sweet pile is for a project bag swap we are doing on the QATW forum. I am loving how this is turning out!

I am not so happy with this next project. I started doing it EPP fashion, but was unhappy with my whip stitching, so took it out and sewed it together with my machine. As you can see, the outer ring is a bit bigger than it should be, it's just basted on, so it will be easy to take off and see if I can fix it. Not sure how though...

This is called Sugar plum by Judy Newman. The rose is going to be the middle and then there will be some outer pieces to make the block square. I can see I need to be better at my 1/4 inch seams...I'm guessing that's why my outer block came out larger than it should be. Pat had some template material and she generously traced the shapes out for me and sent the templates along. She rightly thought that this would be an intriqueing block for me :)

I'm enjoying some lovely sunny days. I get afternoon sun in my sewing room and I love sitting in there with the radio softly playing, while I play with my fabric.

Have a lovely weekend! And thanks for stopping by.

Dorian