A New Year... and some finishes

 A Happy New Year to everyone! I hope this year is a wonderful one for you all.

I just squeezed in one finish for last year. This star quilt I quilted up in late summer. Then I set it aside to start on the next quilt, without binding it. I actually pieced this quilt about 13 yrs ago! It's been sitting long enough.

I don't know why I did that, I'm usually so good at getting the binding done right away. But, I wanted to get it finished, so spent some time on Fri and Sat getting it bound. 

It's called With this Ring, and the pattern is found in the book "Beeni Harper's quilt albumn". I love the stars in the corners.

I quilted it with varigated brown and blue thread. Making flowers and leaves all throughout.

This was going to be a gift, but I made so many mistakes with it, I would be embarrassed to gift it, so I'll keep it. I do love the varigated thread though. I've never used it before, but I think it looks so nice.

I wanted to get these twin baby quilts finished too, but I ran out of steam and didn't get them done on Saturday. But I did finish them on Sunday! They only needed to be trimmed and bound.

When my friend first told me she was pregnant, she didn't know she was carrying twins. A mutual friend of ours is also making quilts for the babies. Kelly showed me a picture of the cute mushrooms and leaves that she was going to put in her quilt, and it made me think of a squirrel quilt I saw at Lorna's shop. So I decided to make it. But then when I was looking at her shop, I saw these adorable baby animals, and decided to do them instead.

These animals are pieced using the flip and sew method. Lorna has great directions. I came up with the setting. It started with this adorable fabric line, Little Fawn Celebration by Dear Stella. I thought that was perfect for welcoming some twins into the world.

I bought a FQ bundle of the fabric and started putting these animals together. 

About half way thru the quilt, my friend told me she was expecting twins, I am so excited for her! But, that means I needed to make another quilt. So I bought the panel that goes with this line and used 4 of the animals to make another quilt.

One quilt I quilted butterflies and flowers, and one quilt I quilted stars and butterflies.

Alike yet different, just like the twins are going to be :) The babies are girls and I hope they get a lot of enjoyment out of these quilts.

Take care, and have a lovely day!

Dorian

A Fun Project

Hello All,

I didn't mean to be gone so long. After making the last few quilt tops, I joined up for a fun project on my quilt forum, QATW.

Jann offered to send whomever wanted to join some fabric. The challenge was to take the fabric she sent (you had to use 75% of it), add 2 yrds of backing and any other fabric, and make something with it. The project had to be quilted and bound by today.

Here is the fabric Jann sent. All of the pieces are between 1/4 and 3/4 yrds. I added the dark red tone on tone on the bottom.

I decided to make a variation of my Pats' Gem's quilt. (I also added the slightly darker shade of aqua triangles here.)

 I had a lot of fun making this quilt. The mini-charm pack went into the border. It's a simple quilt, using 4 squares and HST blocks.

I had to buy the backing and the 2 yrds of background fabric, as I just didn't have anything that I liked to go with Jann's fabric. I rarely use a white or cream as the background, but felt it was a good choice for these fabrics.

I think it turned out pretty good. But that has what's been keeping me busy for most of July. And it's summertime, which means it's hot.  So not a lot of sewing going on. Also I really want to get this quilt top quilted.

So I haven't let myself start anything else, I jumped right from quilting the challenge quilt to quilting the star quilt. It's going very slowly though, just too hot to be moving a quilt around a table.

Well, I hope I wont be gone so long this next time. This is mostly just a quilting blog though, so if I am not quilting/piecing much, then I don't have anything to show :)

This was a fun challenge, thanks Jann!

I'm linking up with Ms Pat today, thank you Pat :)

Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by!

Dorian

Some projects for the New Year

 Hello Everyone,

 A happy new Year to you all. I hope the year has started off well for you.

I received some gift certificates for Christmas this year, to a few of my favorite fabric stores. So I was able to indulge :) Thank you again Carol!

Most of you who have been with me for years, know that my favorite fabric line ever was Sunkissed, by Sweetwater. I just love the soft colors of that line. So I was very thrilled when they came out with the Spring Chicken line last year. As the colors are the same as Sunkissed. So, I had to buy some :)

I am going to use it with these for the Meadow Mist mystery quilt. Cheryl does one clue a month, and it takes a year to get it done. I am too antzy for this, I like to do my mystery quilt clues all at the same time. So I am saving all the clues, and in March I'll get myself caught up, and then be ready for the final clue in April.

The swirly fabrics are going to be the background. Those two fabrics are pieces from Sunkissed that I have been hoarding! I plan on using some of Spring chicken, along with the other fabrics up there, mixing them up and doing a bit of scrappiness.

I've also been wanting to make a rag quilt this year. So I spent a GC on these flannels.

I saw a picture of a rag quilt that uses quilting cottons on the front and the flannel on the back. I liked that look, so I pulled a handful of florals (and discovered something astonishing.... I am running out of florals!! LOL, looks like I have to do more shopping).

These colors aren't exact, but I think they have the same feeling, mostly... and that is what I was shooting for.

I also pulled an old, old quilt top out of storage. I'm not quite sure when I made this top, I can't remember if I did it at the old house (which would be over 11 yrs ago) or if I made it after we moved into this house. But either way, I put it aside and have decided it now needs to be quilted up and sent to it's new owner. She's a special person and her quilt has been calling to me to get it done :)

The quilt design comes out of the Benni Harper quilt albumn. I love the combination of wedding ring and lone star. I really like the colors I used on this quilt. That blue with daisy's is one of my favorites :) So one of the GC's went to backing for this top.

So these projects will keep me busy for a little while at least. Especially since I often have little projects I am doing in between. Like a wall hanging for a swap we are doing on the forum.

So you all take care, thanks for dropping by and have a lovely day.

Dorian

I've gotten a few small quilts finished

 Hello Everyone,

Hope you all are enjoying your summer (winter). It's been going from hot to too hot here in California. When I was younger it didn't bother me so much.

But, I've gotten some smaller quilts finished, so that's a good thing. The first one is another baby quilt for a homeschooling friend of mine.

Here's a closeup, lots of little fishes and aquatic life.

So bright and colorful :) It's 40" square.

This next quilt is 40" square as well. A month ago some friends and I on my quilting forum each chose a 1/2 yrd of fabric out of our stash that we considered ugly. The hostess had drawn names for each of us and that is who we sent our 1/2 yrd of fabric too.

The fabric we recieved we had to make a quilt with, turning an ugly piece of fabric into something pretty. 

This is the fabric I was sent.

The colors in the picture are fairly accurate, maybe just a touch more purplish than pinkish though.

I dug thru my fabrics and came up with some to go with it. I decided on the Lone star pattern, it's a good pattern to use as the pieces are small.

I was happy to find coordinating fabrics in my stash. Here's a closeup.

I did have a few issues with the corners on that first border, but if you don't look too closely, you wont see them ;) 

I'm thinking my big Sis would like this quilt...it might look nice on her wall... what do you think Sis?

Thanks for dropping by and have a great day everyone.

I'm linking up with Pat today, on the scrapatch. Thank you Pat!

Dorian