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

Yah, a finish!

 Hello All,

I finally have a big finish. I've been really lax this year in the sewing room. Have gotten a few small finishes in here and there and made a few tops. But I haven't done a whole lot else.

Then I decided I needed to get one of my very good friends a quilt. We've been 'online' friends for many, many years and she's never received a quilt from me, so I thought this will be the year. I had decided this a month or so ago.

So I dug thru my quilt tops and found this one. This was a swap on my quilt forum, QATW. 

We each made some blocks, and sent one or two of them to everyone else, and had a few of our own as well. 

Then I found this top, one of my favorites. It's Calico Rose from Wedding Dress blues. And I thought it would be a good fit with the swap quilt top. 

This one was a bit smaller, so I had to add some borders to get it up to size. This white is perfect for my friend, as those 'balls' are balls of yarn and B is a crocheter :)

What I didn't realize, until I had taken these pictures, is that some of the stars are so light that they fade into the background SIGH~ There is such a big contrast between the dark ones and the light ones. Oh well, it's a scrap happiness, right??! 

The reason I put two tops together, is because of B. The recipient of this quilt. She encouraged me to put two tops together and make a double sided quilt. She has been saying I should do this for quite a few years now. Every time I mentioned how many tops I had. She would say, "Instead of buying backing fabric, put two tops together." So when I wanted to gift a quilt to her, I decided to make it double sided, just for her :)

And I am so glad that I started quilting this when I did. B was in much need of a quilty hug. When I started quilting it she wasn't, but halfway thru I knew she needed it now, and not at Christmas when I first planned to give it to her. I hope it's given her some comfort.

Have a great day All, thanks for stopping by.

Dorian

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!

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!!

What I'm working on

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all staying safe out there. We are hunkered down, have plenty of provisions. 

This is what it looked like outside yesterday morning.

We have about 15" out there, and it's still lightly coming down this morning. Isn't it beautiful :)

My good friend and best quilting pal  Pat at the scrapatch showed me the Mosaic mystery last year, she pointed it out thinking I might enjoy it. Well I didn't play along with it, but when I saw the finished tops this year, I decided I needed to make one as well.

I didn't have enough fabrics to do the half stars around the edges, so I just made some flying geese for the border. It's small, about 48" square. And this picture isnt great as I had to take it indoors. But I love the spring colors. I changed a little bit of the pattern too, but not much ;)

And then I pulled out this UFO. It's called Calico Rose, you can find it at Wedding Dress Blues.

It uses LOTS of 2" squares, so my scrap box is being whittle down. I have 5 more blocks of each to make. I love making scrappy quilts :)

I hope you have lots of quilty things to keep you busy. Read a good book, clean the house from top to bottom.... stay home and be safe.

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

Scrappy Irish stars top

Hello All,

The summer here has just been so lovely, I can't get over it. We've had very few days over 90 degrees, and none over 95, and that is almost unheard of! I feel very blessed to have such great weather this year. I pray that it keeps the fire danger down. August/Sept are the two worst months for fire in California.

I've finished piecing my scrappy Irish stars! The pattern is at Wedding Dress Blues. I debated about putting a border on it, but I don't think I will. It is at 70x80 right now. I think a border might detract from it's scrappy goodness.

This quilt has some of my very favorite fabrics in it. The background for the stars is from Sweet waters Sunkissed collection, which is my all time favorite :)

There's some V& Co fabrics (that bright orange loveliness). And some Maywood (the roses). 

That cute kitty is Here Kitty Kitty fabrics I got with the kit for this quilt.

Love those gray butterflies too... so many great collections here :)

This quilt to will go put away for now. I have a few other quilts I want to get quilted up before I tackle this one.

Have a great day all!

Some quilty progress

Hello Everyone,

I hope your Summer (winter) is going well. It's been beautiful here. Highs haven't gotten out of the 80s! Which is just soooo nice, as usually we are roasting by now. I see that our temps are going to go up this week though, so I guess our hot summer has begun.

I've been working on getting my Phires Compass top quilted up. I tell myself every year "this is the year to get lots of quilting done" and it just doesn't happen. This is my second quilt this year that I am quilting, but I have 3 more in progress of being made, and I have added at least 2 more tops to my 'to quilt' pile. I'll never see the end of that pile at this rate ;)  

Looking at the link for this quilt, I realized I never showed you a finished top...hmm, I'll make sure to take pictures once the top is quilted :) But here you can see the progress I am making on quilting it.

I'm doing lots of flowers, leaves, swirls and loops. I have done a few new-to-me loopy designs that I got from Lori Kennedy. I have her first book, and I really like it. I follower her blog too and have learned many different quilting motifs. I'm practicing lots on this quilt, which is the best way to practice for me. on a quilt top ;)

I have these two lovely piles of scrappy goodness, waiting to be put into a  quilt top. These are the Irish stars and chain blocks.

I'll be putting these together soon.

Have a great day! Stay cool... or warm...

A mystery quilt and another scrappy quilt

Hello Everyone,

I hope your Summer (winter) is off to a good start. We've had Tstorms going thru here about once a day, but sunny and warm other wise. Its good for the garden and the water tanks, so I'm not complaining.

As I finished Big Brown Bear and don't have the right fabrics to finish some UFO's, I decided to make yet another scrappy quilt. This is another one by Deanna at Wedding Dress Blues. It's called Irish Stars. As I love Irish Chain quilts and I still have quite a bit of precut squares in my scrap bin, I decided...why not??!

Here is flying geese for the stars and the center of the stars. The white with orange dots is part of the background. I dug into my treasured Sunkissed Fabrics by Sweet Water for this quilt.

I choose to use darker/more vibrant hues in this quilt. I think these are all the colors I want to use, although when I do the chain blocks, I might have to add some other shades, as there are 25 squares in each chain block. At least it will wipe out all my 2.5" squares in the scrap bin :) 

Now really, I am not sure what made me choose this pattern, as I ALWAYS have issues with flying geese.. Sigh~ I guess the chain part won out this time. No matter what method I use, I usually end up ripping and resewing quite a few of the geese.

This time, I followed the directions of Deanna and used a 2.5"x 4.5" rectangle for the background and 2.5" squares for the 'wings'. Using the stitch and flip method to put them together. 

You put one square on the end of the rectangle and sew diagonally from corner to corner. I don't draw a line on little squares like this, I just 'eyeball' it.

Then I cut the corner off, using a 1/4" seam.

This time, I want to keep the triangle with the background triangle, so I sewed them together right away, chain stitching them, doing one color at a time (there are 7 colors).

Then you sew the other square to the other side, cut with a 1/4" seam.

Now I get to redo almost half of them. SIGH~ BUT, it used up a bunch of scrap squares, so all is good.

I also have started a new mystery quilt over on my forum, Quilting around the world. My long time readers will know how much I love a good mystery :) Here are the fabrics I am using.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!