Two finished quilts

 Hello Everyone,

I have two finished quilts to show you. The first one is my Southwestern quilt that I started here. I made this for my son Jed. He's 6'3", so it had to be a big quilt. The quilt is 82" x 79", so just big enough.

Jed and I talked about the design and colors he wanted. And so I scanned the web looking for Southwestern designs to incorporate in his quilt. 

He requested a soft, snuggly flannel for the back. Its hard to see this design, but it's a pine tree with a line going around it, makes it look a little Southwestern ;)

I had a good time designing this. And he says he really likes it, colors and all :) So I did a good job.

The next quilt is this pretty little baby quilt for my best friends newest Granddaughter. Who is due to arrive sometime in July.

I had some of these cute prints of the girl, animals and tree fort left over from  my Daughters quilt, so I went thru my stash and found some colors to go with it. 

I just love this mint and pink together, isn't is sweet? This one also has a soft, snuggly flannel backing. These koala's are cute too! (the colors are not really true to form in any of the pictures, but come closest in the below picture.)

It's a small baby sized, just under 40" square. But one I hope she'll drag around with her and play with dollies with :)

Thanks for stopping by, and thank you Pat for your weekly link up.

Have a great evening,

Dorian

More books from my Daughter

 Hello All,

I wanted to talk about my daughters books today. Rachael self-publishes her books that are written for youths , although anyone who enjoys an adventure with some sci-fi and fantasy in it, might enjoy them. 

Rachael has four books out now, two of them I have previously talked about. The next two are the first two books in a new series.

The first one is Sailing for Shadow City:

"Four steps down, turn to the left.

Beware the dark prince in the city of shadow.

The castle's base holds a prize beyond measure."

These words, spoken by a dying man on a wrecked ship, are what starts Sarkin on the longest and most daring adventure in his life. To a young pirate who dreams of a bigger ship and plenty of treasure to go around, it's the best promise that could be given. But after fighting his way through a mystic cult, a sea serpent and a fierce storm, facing the Dark Prince may be more than he asked for.

The second in the series is A Lonely Wind:

After having been betrayed by his best friend and imprisoned at Skon Yew's command in the Shadow City, Sarkin needs to find a way out for himself and the rest of his pirate crew. But all the time his memories are slipping away, stolen by one of Skon Yew's dark servants. When he frees himself and his crew by escaping in a hot air balloon, Sarkin vows to get revenge on his enemies and regain his lost memories. But when the last pieces of his memories are taken from his mind he runs away from the pirate crew to wander by himself in the strange country of Grackland.

I have links to Rachael's books on the side bar. You can order them in an ebook format or you can order a hardback or softback book. 

If you have children who enjoy sci-fi adventure (or know of an adult of course), I hope you'll have him/her look into my Daughter's books. I'm very proud of Rachael and hope that her chosen profession will take off one day soon, and be all that she hopes for. Thank you for reading.

Have a great day! I'll have a quilty finish to show you soon :)

Dorian

Quilts for 2 of my boys

 Hello All,

Spring is here for N. Cal. We are still expecting some wet weather next month, but for now the roses have new leaves, the oaks are starting to bud, the almond has been in bloom, the grass is green... it's very lovely here this time of year. We do need more snow pack, so I hope our April is going to be a very wet one.

I have got Jeds' quilt top all put together.

And while I am waiting for another yard of backing fabric, I have started on Isaiah's quilt.

Isaiah is going to be 9 on Monday and he is 4'7" tall now, he's going to be another tall child for this house (they all take after Dad that way). He only has his baby/toddler quilts, so it's time for a bigger one.

Isaiah loves puppies, especially black labs. I'm glad I was able to find this panel. I'm pairing it with some bright, colorful geese....

These puppies want to be stars....

I have 6 different puppy pictures, two of each colored star. I am pairing them with some red pinwheels. There will be 2 more puppies that wont fit in the quilt, so I'll make some pillow cases with them.

These are large blocks, finishing at 18". So I hope this quilt will be big enough for him for a few years, at least....they grow so fast, don't they?!

I hope to have Jed's quilt finished by the end of April, wish me luck! And have a great day.

I'm linking up again with my good friend Pat from the scrapatch. Thanks for the link up Pat!

Thanks for stopping by,

Dorian

Morewood mystery quilt top

 Hello All,

I finished putting together my Morewood mystery quilt. Thank you Cheryl for another great mystery quilt. I really like this block.

I can see myself using it in other projects. It makes a great chain block. I love four blocks together like this...

My quilty muse had me wanting to make a different layout than Cheryl's. So I made 8 of these blocks and sewed them together in pairs like this..

And when I put everything together, here is what it looks like. (That's my quilty inspector, Ms Red.)

I seem to gravitate towards square quilts. As long as I make them big enough to fit on my queen bed, that's ok :) This is going in the 'to be' quilted pile, as I have to get my older son's quilt done.

I hope those of you who have been having a harsh winter, get some lovely Spring soon. As you can see, we are getting some green grass and things are starting to bloom.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Dorian

What I'm working on

Hello Everyone,

My good friend Pat, over at the scrapatch, has been doing a weekly linky party lately and I decided to join in this week.

I'm making a Southwestern style/colors quilt for my oldest. He and I were talking about quilts awhile back and he was saying he would like one in this color scheme and design, with a flannel back on it. So, what's a quilter Mom to do ;) tehehehe..

This is block A..I am making it in two different color ways.

And this is block B, it also will be in 2 different color ways.

I have 3 more blocks, but these are the only 2 I have photos of right now. I'm waiting for some more fabrics, and then I can finish these up and put them into a top.

~~~~~~~

Cheryl at Morewood designs has come out with the last clue for the latest mystery.

Here is my block A.

See those orange corners.... I realized when I was getting the last installment printed, that I have them turned the wrong way. SIGH~ so I've been spending some time frogging this morning. The block is supposed to look like this:

After I finish these blocks, I can get block B's together. And then my quilty muse is telling me that the final layout might be a bit different than the directions... not that it isn't nice, but...I just like fiddling, that's the way I roll.

Thanks for the great mystery Cheryl!

~~~~~~

And, a baby quilt, for my first Grandson :) due to my stepson and his lovely wife at the end of the month.

If that isn't enough to keep me busy, I still have a mystery quilt from Dec that I need to take apart and switch a few blocks around, that I put in wrong....

Hope you all are having a great day. And have plenty to keep you busy too.

Thanks Ms Pat for your linky party.

And thanks for stopping by,

Dorian

Hearts on fire, my day

 Hello Everyone,

Happy New Year! Lets hope it's a better year. To start things off right, we've got a blog hop.  Carol (hostess for this blog hop) and Carla (hostess for an up coming blog hop) are keeping us hopping, and that is always good :) Thank you both!

I had a lot of fun with this little heart pattern last year. It uses up my tiniest scraps, these are 1.5" squares.

For this blog hop, we are supposed to use NO red in our project. This pretty little heart turned into a handy little tote bag. The heart pattern is called Patchy heart and you can get it on quilters cache.

This are easy bags to make and have lots of different uses. You can put a few books and some pieces of candy in it, and send it off to a friend, which is just what I did (although with different books and candy then what is shown, tehehehe). Use it for library books or whatever else you can think of.

This is such a pretty pattern line, it's called "English Countryside" by Maywood. Here is the back.

And a plain inside, with no pocket.

Thank you for stopping by today and seeing my little project. Please drop by the other bloggers too, and have a great day.

January 21

Quilt Fabrication

Ms P Designs USA

Beaquilter

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Ridge Top Quilt

For The Love Of Geese

Sew Many Yarns

Quilting Gail

Thanks for stopping by,

Dorian

Merry Christmas

 Wishing you all a very Blessed and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Thank you for sticking around and reading my posts.

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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From the Heart blog hop, my day

Hello All,

Welcome to my day on the From the Heart blog hop. And a big thank you to Carol, of Just let me quilt, for another great blog hop.

People who craft and create always put a lot of thought and love into their work. Whether they are creating for their work or as a hobby. If you don't love what you do, then it's hard to do it. So everything I make is 'from the heart' and I had to think for  awhile before I figured out what I wanted to show today.

This year has been very hard on so many people. Besides the whole covid issue, a lot of people are having more health issues, there is too many huge fires burning the West, lots more storms wrecking havoc in the middle and Eastern states, just to name a few. So this year I am trying to spread a bit more love to my friends. I'm sending out hugs.

Mug rugs make great little gifts. You can personnalize them to the reciever, which is always fun.

This is another one I sent out. And it has a funny story. I grabbed the pink squares to go with the black and white because I thought that would be pretty, I really liked it. Then I found the awesome rainbow print, perfect, and decided, what the heck, I'll use pink on the back too. But the whole time I was making this with a particular person in mind, I kept thinking "I hope she likes pink"..... turns out, it's her favorite color :) Must be serendipity ;)

The next two are a little bigger, you can still use them for a mug and a plate of goodies, or put it on the wall or whatnot. This one was for my best quilting buddy, Pat at the scrapatch, she blogged about it here.

This one was for an old friend 'in memory of..', her Mom had passed, and her Mom loved birds.

All these projects are great for using up your scraps. The top hearts one was made with my 1.5" squares, and this one was made with 1.5" strips. I just can't seem to throw these little bits out.

No matter the size of your project, or even if it's just a few words on a sheet of paper. Sending out heartfelt gifts and words are so important. Everyone likes to feel they are special to someone, everyone likes to know that people like and respect them, everyone enjoys having friends and receiving something special.

 As the Beatles say, "Love is all we need.." :) so we just need to "Let the love flow...".

Have a lovely day, and don't forget to stop and see all the other beautiful things people are making. Here are the other bloggers sharing my day, you can find the full list at Carol's.

October 26

Creatin' in the Sticks

Ms P Designs USA

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Websterquilt

Selina Quilts

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Quilting Gail

Scrapdash

Ridge Top Quilt

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

That Fabric Feeling

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

Disappearing 9 patch, and a finish

Hello Everyone,

It's crazy how fast this year is going. The older I get, the faster it seems to go.

I've been working a lot with my scraps this year. It feels good to get them used up.

Yesterday I pulled out my 2 1/2" squares to play with. Sorting them by color, dark and light.

I am making a disappearing 9 patch. You take a simple 9 patch. And cut it in the middle on both sides.

Then you have 4 blocks that look like this. That you can switch around..

Turning this way and that...

Until you have a design you like...

You can mix and match them too...

I still have a lot of 9 patches to make, so am not sure how I am going to make the final layout. Stay tuned :)

Here is another finish I did in Sept. This one was finished right at the end of the month. I'm calling it mosaic tiles.

I was fascinated by this triangle, made by using a square and 2 triangles.

You put four of them together and you get this block.

I'm sure this has a name, but I don't know what it is. I just that it was a fun block to make. Now that the quilt is finished, I wished I would of made it bigger. This one is 44 x 50. I think the two borders really set it off. I'm sure a little girl somewhere will love it, it's going in my donate pile.

It's a good thing I have lots of scraps to play with, as there are lots of great scrappy quilts to make!

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