My Favorite Things by Roseanne Dowell

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 two of my nieces. White on white, I machine embroidered them with the darning stitch so I had control. They turned out really nice, but I really love to hand embroider. That’s when I discovered red-work. During a quilting shop-hop, one of the stores highlighted red-work. For those of you 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.

Anyway, I fell in love with it. Every year I make something for Christmas (often a Santa) for my six children and give it to them on Thanksgiving. 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 queen-size quilt for our bed, using various flowers. I found a book with different flower transfers and proceeded to iron them onto fabric and embroider them. It took the better part of a year to finish the quilt and many times I wondered why I started it and was tempted to quit. I’m glad I persevered. The quilt turned out beautiful and I use it every spring/summer.

Once I finished that, I decided to make a baby quilt for each of my

grandchildren – for their first born. I started out looking in 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 to Sunbonnet Sue. 


Eventually, I found transfer books and started using them for designs. I looked everywhere for baby designs. I finally finished my

14th and last quilt. That’s a lot of baby quilts. Most of them are done in red work, but I varied some with other colors, too. 

It took a couple of years to do all the squares. Four years ago, I made quilts for my niece’s twins using kitten and bunny patterns. They’re done in many colors. Since then she had another child, another boy, so I made one for him using baby animals.

Four years ago, I also gave my first grandchild’s quilt to my oldest granddaughter, whose baby boy was born in June – my first great grandchild. That same year, my fourteenth grandchild was born, another boy and I did puppies for him.

April 12^th, I gave my second quilt at another granddaughter’s shower. She’s having a baby girl in May. It’s exciting to see the look on their faces when they open the quilt. I hope they cherish them and love them as much as I loved making them.

I've marked each quilt with the name of which 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 around to give them all away.



This last quilt I made for another niece's baby. I'd say it's one of my favorites, but honestly I say that about all of them. It's impossible to choose one. They were all fun to work on. Now I have to find something else to keep me busy. I think I've found it, chip carving but that's a topic for another blog.

Check out my books at Amazon   Here's one of my favorites.

Forced to stay in a nursing home while undergoing therapy, seventy-two year old, Mike Powell refuses to get out of bed, won't cooperate with the nurses, and won’t take his medicine. At least not until he meets Elsa. The tiny, spunky little Elsa sparks new life into him. 

Seventy year old, Elsa -left in the home while her son takes a family vacation - joins forces with Mike, setting the home on its heels, and later discovers deception and fraud. Can they find happiness together? 

Who says life begins at 40? Life is wonderful at any age, as long you're willing to live it. Elsa Logan and Mike Powell prove it. And I want to be just like them when I grow up! One of Roseanne Dowell's best, and my personal favorite! 
Elsa Logan bears a striking resemblance to a romance writer I know who shall be nameless but whose initials are R. D. ~ Romantic Suspense Author, Gail Roughton

A Little About Me

Today is my birthday and I decided to do something different. Instead of promoting my books, I thought I'd talk a little about one of my hobbies instead of my books. That's right, you won't find an excerpt or anything about any of my books on this blog. It's all about me.

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 really 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. Anyway, I fell in love with it.

Every year I make something for Christmas (usually a Santa) for my 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 one year.

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 child and grandchild. 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 used patterns from zoo animals to Winnie the Pooh.

Eventually, I found transfer books and used 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 of embroidery floss, too. I recently finished the quilt top of the 14^th. Now, I have to put it together and quilt it. That's a project for winter.

The others have been finished for a couple of years. It took a several years to embroider all the squares and put them together. 

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. Recently, she another child. A boy–so I just finished baby animals one for him. Now I have to get it over to her, hopefully within the next week or two.

I gave my first grandchild’s quilt to my oldest granddaughter, who had a baby boy, my first great grandchild. 

With another granddaughter married and one soon to be, maybe I'll be giving two more away soon. 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 for their children. I hope they treasure them.Below is a collage of a few of the ones I made.

 To store them, I put them in large bag from a store bought quilt. 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. I put it on my bed in the summer. It took over a year to embroider all the flowers, 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. The hard part was quilting it.

So now you know a little more about me. I'm not just an author, I'm a wife, mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Yes, I enjoy writing, but my family is my first love. 

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