Getting back into the swing...

Boy! It seems like such a long time since I've posted and I guess it is.
I've done a lot of crafts since my health has got back to normal. YAH!
I have finished this pretty beauty...

And instead of using the pieces I had, altering the pattern and assigning a generic name....I've found out this pattern is called "SISTERS CHOICE" . Wow, I was dumbfounded.
I have made 19 new dolls but only 4 different kinds. I need to dress 2 of them so they will be upcoming.
I had a urge to oil paint and I've since started a large themed  photo of a mama elephant with her baby. Elephants capture my attention no matter what they are the subject of. I think they are complex and amazing in their quiet and under spoken hierarchy ways of living.

I have finished this dedication to my cancer embroidery sampler, only needing to hand stitch the border and quilt my lines.I have seen lots of family in the last year, three of my nieces have had babies of their own and my sister was seriously sick but is much better now.
Madame continues to dance, cheer and go to school, she has grown in the last two years.
Oh, my husband and I built this,

He has always promised me one and now it is TRUE! Next will be the orchard.
Lastly, on a sad note...my companion of fifteen and a half years passed. 

What a triumphant dog he was. C & G Design

Words and photos by Dawn, C&G Design.

Purchased Vintage Patterns

I'm excited I've found a vendor on EBay that sells vintage patterns, she has 600 patterns up for offer and I sat through looking at everyone of them! Three faced doll. Mostly what you see from my first purchase is recognisable dolls, one pattern is a baby crawling, this one is Kewpie! I've never seen a cloth Kewpie and I'm anxious to see how all the little details are done. And who doesn't know Humpty Dumpty, the only difference is the pattern is large enough to make it a pajama bag. It reads the pattern can be a large doll though, either way....I was getting this one! Wouldn't he look great painted and varnished?

I purchased the crawling baby because I'm intrigued about the steadiness of the arms and legs, chances are the fabric needs to be cut on the bias, diagonally to the weave.

And the boudoir clothing pattern! Now you can see what my doll will be wearing! (the little items are a hat and garter)

Beloved Belindy, Raggedy Ann and Andy's nanny.

Visit MJ Vintage Patterns. C&G Design

Redwork-block 6, Beaver

This one is so neat! I had to make sure "BUCKY" beaver made it into his own block, the tail is a unique pattern. Not many animals can be embroidered with a criss-cross pattern because not many have this texture. It looks a little dis-organized in the next picture but it was quite easy and went fast.

I love his little face, and while the next block is one of my favorite animals, I must say.....this is my favorite block out of this group of four.

And by now, I've embroidered another group of four (this is fast stitching), I thought about posting two blocks at once, but this way it's giving me the opportunity to be in the yard and garden almost all day.

My beaver came out well. C&G Design

25 Piece Star Quilt

You know those items that get passed along, or you purchase a box lot, blindly? Kinda like a brief Christmas, when you get the chance to look at it all?

This is like that.....

Here's what I found......several different pieces of squares.

Thus I began a search on the Internet to see exactly how my pieces could fit together to make something beautiful. I'm not sure what the previous owner had in mind but with so many purple pieces I can only gather the plan was a crib quilt.

That's what mine is going to be, see the stitched piece in the background of the first picture?
Gee! My table is a mess!
Anyway, it's called 25 piece star, it's really 29 pieces because the points of the star are triangles stitched together to make the same size square.




The reason you see one star completed is, I needed to see if the star could be done! The cutter of my squares apparently did not use a rotary cutter, it was evident by the drawn lines on the fabric. No two squares were the same size, so no two stars would go together accurately, I got close, although less than perfect.
I began by train stitching my blocks together, you do this by allowing the feed dog of your machine to grab one pinned article after another.
It's kinda neat and if you can prevent yourself from overlapping your fabric, you will be able to work quicker and neater than sewing each one individually.

You could almost flip the rows together and stitch the other way, I didn't do this because my excess thread (where it needed snipping) wasn't that abundant. I sewed my rows together by pinning 3 and 2, then I stitched the two parts together. This is important in explaining the next photo.
Oops, I goofed! Part two (on top) needed to be taken apart. This was my second time doing this mistake.
But after stitching it together AGAIN! And placing it in the finished work area....I decided something didn't look right. Ay, iy, iy, my last stitching had another mistake that I'd copied from the one I'd finished before it! You can see little of the block in the other picture, at that point I really couldn't see this drastic error! I was careful using the little scissors, I made sure my aggravation with myself didn't effect me using my snippers, although.... I did alot of muttering while taking everything apart! LOL!
My squares made eight bigger block, I had only a few 2 inchers left over, grateful I could use them in case I needed to throw out a couple. I have only to iron and even my blocks up by trimming the sides a bit, A MUST for a square, non wavy, quilt.

On to the others.....C & G Design.

Great Grandmothers Quilt

I never knew my great grandmother, but I figure she was a accomplished stitcher, she left myself and my 3 sisters a quilt each. She hand made all of them.



My older sisterhttp://tinaramsey.blogspot.com/ got the bow tie pattern, which is really recognizable....But I don't know now.....mine might be a toss up. Can you guess which one it is?


I'm thinking...my hubby being "Jack of All Trades" and my sister's hubby being "Mr Fix-It", might have something to do with it.

My great grandmother used white on white, this is the mixed wrench pattern. It is a old, traditional, method of quilting, using super scraps.

Each square pattern measured 6'' x 6'' and the overall size of the quilt is 60'' x 70''.


She back lined it with white and hand quilted the log cabin pattern.

Lottsa work. C & G Design.