Happy Things

A couple of fun and exciting things have happened recently.

- I went to the AQS show in Lancaster. It was wonderful to see so many lovely quilts.

- I won a Judge's Choice award at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival for California Dreaming. Yeah!

California Dreaming copyright Diane Rusin Doran

- I'm so pleased to have two of my quilts (Winter's Tarnish and Return of the Grackle) featured in the April/May issue of Quilting Arts in Jane Davila's article on filler stitching, plus a full page ad for Craft Daily featuring Sunrise Serenade as the backdrop. (All these quilts are on my "Recent Quilts" page.)

- I finished a small quilt! When I find out if it was accepted to the exhibit I entered it in I'll share all the details.

I was so wishing spring would have arrived by now, but alas, this is how it looks in my neck of the woods today:

Here's hoping spring has already sprung for you.

Ice, Ice Baby

So, along with masses of other folks, we had a big ice storm. You know me and the nature pics - just can't stop. Bear in mind that there was quite a bit of ice, so I didn't dare venture far from the shelter of the house and most of the photos were taken with lots of zoom. At least one of them was taken through a window. (This was a smart decision, as we had a very large tree fall into the middle of the driveway in the afternoon. I was in the side yard and could hear it *loudly* falling.) Enjoy!

The sun finally came out for a few shining moments at the end of the day.

Happy New Year!

We had a lovely Christmas in Lake Charles, Louisiana, then celebrated with my family here in Maryland. So now we're ready for what we hope is a wonderful New Year!

Christmas Eve sunset

Enjoying a carriage ride to see some lights

Christmas Day sunset 

Gotta love those sunsets across the water - always inspirational.

**I wish all of you an exceptionally happy and healthy New Year!**

Winter Wonderland

It's been a while since I posted just a bunch of pretty pictures, so here are a few from today's ice storm. These were all taken in my side yard.

I hope you are all warm and dry!

Wordless Wednesday

Winter Blooms

Winter has been so mild that our Autumn Blooming Higan has bloomed nonstop this year.

 

 

 

I took this earlier this week

Yesterday winter visited briefly, bringing a little sparkle.

Hello World!

Well, a *very* big welcome to all of you stopping by due to the link on craftzine.com. Thanks for checking out the tutorial! I hope you enjoy your visit. If you're also interested in quilts please be sure to check out my website, www.dianedoran.com. Also, many thanks to Mama-E (Erin) for providing the link to Craft! (You should definitely check out Mama-E's warehouse - she dyes very beautiful yarn and fiber.)

Minty has been over here lately, and she's always so nice about my nature photos, so I thought I'd post a few just for her. We had an ice storm this week, and I very briefly ran out and took a few photos before the rain washed all the ice away.

The ice was coating this bush.

To my amazement, this ice casting was formed.

I placed it on our broken sundial.

On another happy note, the lights in my work space are back on, so I can get back to organizing my own space - yeah!