Thursday, April 5, 2012

Spunky Author, Roseanne Dowell, Shares Her Other Talents

One of my favorite things to do when I’m not writing is embroidery. Another is quilting. I’ve found a way to combine the two. First, I made baby quilts for my nieces. White on white, I machine embroidered them with the darning stitch so I had control. They turned out so nice, but I really love to hand embroidery. That’s when I discovered red-work. During a quilting shop-hop, one of the stores highlighted red-work. For those who don’t know what red-work is – it’s embroidery done in all red floss. Just the outline of the picture, not filled in like other embroidery patterns. 
A Christmas Wall Hanging Done by Roseanne
Anyway, I fell in love with it. Every year I make something for Christmas (usually a Santa) for my six children and give it to them on Thanksgiving. Sometimes it’s ceramic, sometimes wood. I found a Santa pattern and did it all in red-work, framed it and gave it to them.
That’s when I decided to make a baby quilt for each of my grandchildren – not for them, but for their first born. I had already made lap quilts for each of them. But where to find patterns? I started out with coloring books for designs. I traced the images onto 12x12 squares of muslin.  After I finished embroidering the squares, I cut sashing and sewed them together. For the backing I used various fabrics, not nursery print. None of the quilts have nursery fabric in them at all. I’ve used patterns from animals to Winnie the Pooh.
Eventually, I found transfer books and started using them for designs. I looked everywhere for baby designs. Thirteen of them are finished, but I now have 14 grandchildren, that’s a lot of baby quilts. Most of the quilts are done in red work, but several are done with various colors, too. I just finished the quilt top of the 14th. Now, I have to put it together and quilt it.

The others have been finished for a couple of years. It took a several years to embroider all the squares. Since then, I also made quilts for my niece’s twins. One of the patterns is kittens and the other is bunnies. She had a girl and boy, so I thought the bunnies would be good for him. Now, she’s having another child. A boy–so I’m working on baby animals for her.
I gave my first grandchild’s quilt to my oldest granddaughter, who had a baby boy, my first great grandchild.  For my fourteenth grandchild, another boy, I found the perfect quilt pattern for him. Ducks.
I couldn’t wait to get it done, even though it’s going to be many years before he’ll need it. I’ve marked each quilt with the name of the grandchild they’re supposed to go to in case I’m not around to give it to them. My daughters have been instructed to pass them out. I hope I’m still around to give each child their quilt, but if I’m not they’ll each have a piece of me. I hope they treasure them. To store them, I put them in one of those quilt bags you get from the store. Yes, I bought a quilt for my bed. But I did make one too, I embroidered wild flowers in each square – and yes, I filled them in, not just outlined. It took over a year to do it, but it was worth it. Besides, I have nothing better to do in the evening while I’m watching TV. That’s the nice thing about embroidery, you can sit in front of the TV and still work on it.
If you’d like to know more about me or my books, check out my website www.roseannedowell.com and you can find my books at Amazon   http://amzn.to/tnqgR2

21 comments:

  1. Your work is beautiful, Roseanne! I am a quilter, too, and used to do embroidery and crewel work. I have some printed fabric of sunbonnet sues in various poses, printed in red, and some day when I have better tremor control I will work on that again! You can visit my quilts at www.beyondoldwindows.com, in the photo gallery and on a page called Quilter's Quarters. I'm working on one today, my second for a golf tournament to benefit an ALS patient in town. I've posted the first at my facebook home page, and will post the second when it is finished. Very hard to find golf motif in fleece! But I did, and i worked with it.
    Welcome to Spunky Seniors!
    Terry, of terrysthoughtsandthreads.blogspot.com

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  2. Awesome quilts, Terry. Thanks for commenting and sharing.

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  3. Welcome to Spunky Senior Authors and Talents, Roseanne. I have to force myself to sew buttons, and know I wouldn't have the patience to do quilts. You are truly talented!

    Morgan Mandel
    http://morganmandel.blogspot.com

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  4. Roseanne, and I was in awe of your writing. I had no idea your were so multi-talented. Now I can't be your friend anymore. *lol* Honestly, your grandchildren and their children are so lucky to have such a caring person in their lives. I had quilts for each of my son that my grandmother made, but when I got divorced, they got left behind and who knows what happened to them. Makes me so sad that all I can do is buy things for my grandson. He's too young to appreciate if I wrote a book for him. :)

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  5. Wow Roseanne.....You are a "jack of all trades" The quilts are gorgeous. You children and grandchildren are very lucky! As I am now a senior I have thought of taking up knitting to do as I watch TV. That lasted 5 minutes. No patience.

    Thanks for sharing yet another talent you possess!

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  6. Boy, Ginger, I didn't think you'd drop me for a friend just because I have another talent. Hey, guess what, I can cook, too. LOL One day your grandson is going to love your books. Why don't you write one about him or specifically for him. I know you can do it. Write about his daddy.

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  7. I tried knitting, too, Penny. I'm great at making scarves, in fact, one year everyone got a scarf for Christmas from me, and I did make shawls for the granddaughters and daughters. But no way can I make things with sleeves. I used to crochet and made a lot of baby blankets, even made my daughters crocheted dresses when they were little, but it was pretty much all straight except for the armholes and no sleeves. Takes too much concentration - you have to count.

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  8. Those quilts are heirlooms that can't have a price put on them. They're priceless. (I'd seen 'em before but they knock me down every time.)

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  9. You quilt and write and...

    So when do you have the time!!!!

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  10. Cheryl, I'm home all day so I generally write during the day and quilt at night. Besides that, I hate not doing anything.

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  11. I used to do crafts but had to decide between that and writing and guess which one won? I think your quilts are beautiful. There's a shop near my workplace that does quilts similar to the ones you showed, but the detail behind is a complete picture. I'll see if I can photograph it next week and send to you.

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  12. Roseanne,
    Your quilts are gorgeous. I really envy your talent. I battle to sew up a hem.

    Regards

    Margaret

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  13. Thank you, Margaret. It's just straight sewing, nothing fancy..

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  14. Roseanne, your quilts are beautiful, and you are certainly blessed with fourteen grandchildren!

    Karen

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  15. I love the embroidery. It's beautiful.

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  16. Thank you Karen and Liz. Yes, Karen, I'm very blessed.

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  17. What treasures! You are truly an artist!

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  18. The quilts are lovely, and what a nice way to combine two fabric talents. I used to embroider a lot as a child and well into adulthood. I remember once my grandmother turning my work over to see what the underside looked like. She told me someone really good at embroidering would make the backside look almost as good as the front. My grandmother made the most awesome quilts and hooked rugs.

    Now I have not done embroidery for years, but I have done some quilting. That is a good thing to do in the evening's wile watching TV.

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  19. You're right, Maryann, about the back side looking as good as the front, mine doesn't. I'm happy the front side looks good.

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  20. What lovely work! I can't sew a stitch!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Patricia. I enjoy doing it,especially the embroidery part.

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