I want to welcome all the new friends who recently signed up to follow my blog. I promise not to inundate you with emails and posts. I hope to get to know everyone, so please leave comments at the end of any post or go to CONTACT ME and leave me a message. I answer them all.
The 10-book giveaway was a great success. We had many entries and five very happy winners. Congratulations to all five: Sue, Jean, Debra, Shiela, and Judy. They have all received their cartons containing the entire Quilting Cozy series.
If you haven’t read any of the books, I’ll tell you about them briefly. They are cozies and take place in an upscale retirement community in the Midwest. All the characters are in their seventies and spend their time quilting, building relationships, and solving mysteries. As a retired geriatric social worker, I will admit that you will run into the occasional issue of aging and follow the characters as they find creative solutions.
The books are best read in order so you can see the development of relationships among these feisty septuagenarians, but each book can stand alone.
In May, the eleventh book in the series, Beneath Missouri Stars: a quilting cozy will be released by my publisher, C&T publishing. It’s available now for preorder from the publisher and from Amazon.
I also wanted my previous followers to know that there was a winner of the quilt that I made and donated to the Morgan County Humane Society in West Virginia. They sold raffle tickets for several months and a winner was recently chosen. Congratulations, Cindy!
I have encouraged quilters to consider making a quilt as a fundraiser for your local animal shelter. The one I made is pictured below. I’m thinking about doing a blog with the directions for making this quilt if there is any interest. Let me know.
So, in closing, welcome to my new followers and to my previous followers, I thank you for reading my books, responding on my blog, and continuing to follow me on WordPress and Facebook. My very best wishes to everyone in the new year.
A Quilting Cozy Series - Carol Dean Jones 
I am an avid follower of your wonderful Quilt Cozy books. I would love a chance to get signed copies of Your books.
I have been busy working on a Birthstone quilt which was a Block of the month from our Local Quilt Club.
Carol I’m happy to see you Quilting baby quilts. They are such a perfect size to machine quilt. I am sure you are loving this creative time.
Can’t wait for your book.
Arlene
Hi Carol,
I opened my CT advertisement email this evening and was so VERY PLEASED to see your new book! I immediately placed my order and will be looking forward to its arrival. My family are all healthy and have been staying at home practicing social distancing and I firmly believe that is assisting with lowering the numbers of infected souls. It has been tough be separated from everyone and being home alone but when you compare being alone to the families suffering losses of family members our loss is minimized. I hope all is well with you and your family. I have been doing a lot of quilt piecing, crochet and knitting and did clean and de clutter my sewing room from top to bottom. I picked up two of my sewing machines from service the weekend before the quarantine began….luckily…because I have given them a workout. Temperatures were in the 90’s this week so looking forward to sitting in my easy chair with a glass of iced tea and fan blowing away while I enjoy your book, hopefully next weekend. Thank you for your lovely writings I feel like I’m friends with all the characters. They have been gone for awhile and I truly have missed them!!
Best regards, Dawn Lunn
Sent from my iPhone
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Hi Dawn,
Thank you for your lovely note. I’m so glad your family is doing well in this unusual time. I too am alone (with my dogs) and wonder how people cope when they have an entire household to keep safe. I just stay home…have my food delivered to the front porch…and spend my time in the sewing room. I haven’t been able to write – I just can’t get my mind there. I’m sure the stress pushes out the creativity but I’m sewing all day every day and having fun with that. I’m making baby quilts. there’s a new blog out today about a drawing for the whole set of books. You’ve read them, but you might like to sign up — they make good gifts.
Continue to take good care of yourself.
My very best wishes,
Carol
Hi Carol!!
I can hardly wait for my copy of Beneath Missouri Stars to ship in May. I have thoroughly enjoyed the first 10
and THANKS to you have learned so much about quilting. I’m totally in love with the Prairie Points you introduced us to in Missing Memories. I’ve included them in many of my quilts. The wall hanging in Moon over the Mountain is floating around in my head too.
Hugs to you and the furries
Cecilia
Welcome to my blog. If you have time, please read back over some of the previous blogs. I have lots more information that you might be interested in, particularly ones about quilting. And thank you for the link I received today. I will be enjoying it tomorrow!
Hugs right back to you,
Carol
I AM UP TO TATTERED AND TORN , LOVE THEM ALL- OC
So glad you are enjoying them! Beneath Missouri Stars will be out in May and I’m doing a final edit on the final book in the series. It’s been great fun writing these books and the characters feel like friends of mine at this point. Thank you for taking the time to let me know that you are enjoying them. As you may know, I wrote my first book at the age of 75 and wish I had started much earlier. Best wishes and please stay in touch.
Carol
I would also like the instructions for the Rescue Quilt. It is darling! I have many fabrics I’ve saved for landscape quilts that would work great for the Rescue Quilt.
Okay, Marcie. I’ve heard from several people that they are interested so I’ll work up the pattern and do a blog during February. I ‘made it up’ as I was doing it, but I kept some notes and it was really very simple, especially if you already have fabrics. I suggest that you look for dog fabric where the dogs are spread out far enough apart so you can fussy cut them out without getting ears and tails from other dogs. Looking forward to the project! Thank you for your interest.
Carol
Both
Ah! Thank you.
I’m very interested in getting directions for rescue quilt.
Stay tuned. I’ll attempt to get the instructions documented within the month. I ‘made it up as I went’ but I have notes and it’s very easy. You can start collecting scraps (quarter yards would be more than enough) of bricks and grass, sky, trees, wood….just look at my picture to get ideas of fabrics. Thank you for your interest.
Carol
Beautiful quilt.
Sue B
Thank you, Sue. Are you referring to the dogs or the Missouri Star? I was afraid the dark (almost black) sky was going to overpower the stars on the book cover, but it looks like it will be okay. I haven’t seen an actual book yet.
i would love to see how to make this quilt.
I will begin pulling my notes together. I made this one up as I went but it is amazingly easy to do. And such fun! if you take a look at the backgrounds you will see I used skies and trees. So start going through your stash….I have a collection of scraps that I call ‘environments’ and it has rocks, grass, bricks, wood…whatever. Thanks for saying you are interested. That’s all I needed to hear!