Some tops

 Hello All,

I didn't mean to be go for so long. Sewing has been up and down, following the weather patterns we've been having. I get cold easily now a days and when we've had cold, rainy weather, I stay in the living room near the fire. Our Spring has been going from the warm upper 70s down to the low 30's, back and forth. 

I have managed to get a few tops finished though. This table runner is completely finished and already at it's new home. I just forgot to take a photo of it all quilted and bound.

This one was a mystery quilt on my forum. Heather is often doing quilt mysteries with us, always so fun. Mine didn't come out as well as others, as I used to many shades of green and then the two different whitish colors. 

I had chosen this hedgehog fabric as the main focus, so chose colors to go with it. The white with butterflies matches perfectly (the colors of the butterflies), but it wasn't the right project for them.

And here is the cute, colorful irish chain top. I got the borders on and hopefully will get some backing soon and get it quilted up.

I need to turn to quilting, as I have lots of tops that need finishing. But quilting is much harder on me than piecing, and more fun too :)

Linking up with the sweet Ms Pat this week, thank you Pat.

Thank you for stopping by, have a great day!

Dorian

Another Irish Chain

 Hello All,

Spring is here, and it's not a very wet one. I have a feeling we are in for a long, dry summer :( We usually get much of our water in the months between March and May, but not this year.

I had a bunch of 2" and 2 1/2" strips laying around. Some of them were WOF long from jelly rolls, others were partial strips, anything from 10" to 30". I made sure they were all 2" wide and then sewed them together in strips sets like this.

You can just see the green strip that has two strips sewn together. As some of my strips weren't long enough, I sewed them end to end until all my strips were at least 40" long. Then I cut them into 2" segments and sewed them together into the chain blocks.

Making sure that the blue was constant throughout the quilt, making the large X in each chain block. You can see some of the squares are two toned, from sewing the ends of strips together. (See them circled below).  But that's ok, I think it adds charm.

I was originally going to put wildflowers in the alternate blocks, but when I saw how colorful this was turning out, I decided to use these fun animal prints instead, and make a kid quilt.  I cut these fabrics into squares and then sewed a 2" wide strip of yellow on either side of a square.

Then I sewed strips together like so.

And cut them into 2" wide segments.

And put them together like this.

Put them all together, and you have a really cute and colorful Irish chain quilt :)

I still need to all a fun border, I'll use more leftover strips, and then I'll quilt it up, as I think I have a backing for it.

I'm sharing with Pat and her stitch and share link again today, thank you Pat for your linky.

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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Late January already

Hi All,

Can you believe how quickly the time is going? It just seems to be flying by. I hope this year I can get a lot more quilt tops quilted up. I have been telling myself for a few years now, that I just need to concentrate on quilting more and piecing less.... but I'm not listening to myself :)

Aren't these stars cute? They are 4".

They will be going into the border for this next quilt. Another Scrappy Irish stars quilt. The pattern is over at  the Wedding dress blues blog. 

This is my second one. They are so bright and cheerful, I really enjoy making them :) Thank you for the pattern Deanna.

Have a wonderful day everyone.

Thanks for stopping by,

Dorian

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.

more scraps and chains

Hello All,

We have had such lovely weather lately. It's been nice after all the rain we got, with more to come this weekend. This time of year is typically sunny and warm, but we really need the rain, so I am glad we've been having it.

I have been playing with scraps more. I dumped out my scrap box and started sorting and trimming. I love the pile of trimmings :)

Here is what I ended up with. 

LOTS of 2" and 2.5" squares!

I sorted thru the 2.5" pile, getting out 8 different colors (it's for a boy quilt, so I wanted specific colors).

 So that I  can make the quilt below.

That quilt is made by  Deanna, at Wedding Dress Blues. She has a LOT of great tutorials for scraps. 

For some reason, I couldn't throw away this pile of little's.  Mostly scraps that are between 1/2" and 1" wide. I just love them!  Some little squares I'll figure out something to do with...

And you know what?? Deanna has a tutorial for them too! For this spools quilt.

AND, when I want to play with more scraps, she has a great Irish Chain star quilt I want to do!! 

Thank you Deanna, for all the lovely tutorials!! I'll be sure to keep cutting up my scraps into, mostly, squares. I DO have a baggy of triangles to use in that star quilt too ;)

I love chain quilts. I recently finished this Irish chain top. I'm not sure if I'll do a border or not.

And on my quilt forum, we were doing a mystery quilt, and turns out it was a chain quilt too! Here are my blocks for that.

Yes, another pink quilt. I do like pink :) I need to get off the computer and start putting these into a top.

Have a great day ya'all!

The Irish Chain

Hi Folks,

Chain quilts are my very favorite type of quilt pattern. And the Irish chain is my favorite chain quilt. Here is one I made and gifted to my Aunt. I love this one :)




So, I had a 10" layer cake of  Butterflies and Berries by Riley Blake designs.
  and I thought it would make a darling Irish chain quilt. Here is what the fabrics look like. I love the heart butterflies :)

                     

I had a jelly roll of Red Simply color by V and Co. I love this line, have a jelly roll of orange too :)

Then I found some red hearts on white background and some greens to go with it all... And my Irish chain quilt is underway.

This is going to make a darling little girl quilt.... now I'll have to find a little girl to give it to :) lol

Have a great day.

What I've been up to

Hello All,

California is getting some much needed rain. On and off, with a few snow flurries thrown in :) My youngest realllllly wants the snow to stick and be a foot deep, so he can play and go sledding. lol. I hope we'll have a snowy winter this year. Last winter, we barely got any.

So, I wanted to show you the quilt I made for my Aunt. This was one of my tops that were in the 'need to be quilted' pile. So I got a quilt off the pile and sent a warm hug to my Aunt :)

Here's a close up.. sorry these pictures aren't the greatest.. I kept the quilting easy. Ran two straight lines on the diagonals and did some large, loopy flowers in the flower blocks.

I love Irish chains :) and this one is one of my very favorites. I'm glad my Aunt has it.

I only have three more blocks on my cornerstone quilt to put together :)

But, with the weather turning cold, I decided it was time to get my dd's quilt top quilted up. My new table is awesome when it comes to basting :) No more trying to find a large piece of floor space and then crawling around on the floor... haven't been able to do that for ages due to my hips. So I tried other things. I even taped the pieces to a wall and sandwhiched a few quilts on the wall a time or two.. that was better than crawling on the floor. But... this table is so much better than both those methods.

Another chain type quilt, I just love them.

Here's a close up of those clips that hold the quilt to the table. I got them at byAnnie.com.

They work pretty good.

So after this, I really should get a move on on a few Christmas gifts huh?! Can you believe how close it is!!

Linking up with Lorna.

Have a great day.

 

Doing some quilting for a change

Hello All,

I made this Irish chain quilt a few years (at least!) ago. I just love the flower pattern, and Irish chain patterns are one of my favorites.

It's just been sitting in my UFO pile. I needed a nice lap quilt though, to send to my Aunt. She's losing her battle with cancer :( And I wanted to send her something to wrap her in love and comfort.

It's 60x60 and I'm doing a bit of straight line quilting with my walking foot (on both diagonal's in the tannish squares) and I'll do some FMQing in the big flower squares. So it shouldn't take me too very long. (My new table is AWESOME!!)

Before I pulled this out, I was getting some more Cornerstone blocks made.

I so enjoy working with these colors, there are many more to do, this is just a small part of it. Lots more colors to work with :)

Linking up with Lorna and her Lets Bee Social linky. And Lee with her WIP linky.Thanks Ladies.