Mummy Loves Selvages

 I love selvage quilting.  I love Halloween.  It doesn't matter that it's July, right?  We'll just call it an early start.

 I am having a lot of fun free-piecing this guy.  (My sewing machine is still getting fixed, but thankfully I have a loaner.  Thanks Tina!)  This mummy just makes me smile.  He is turning out just how I imagined him in my head.  Everything it still rough and needs shaping and more selvages added, but you can get the idea.

 Figuring out how to free-piece this hand definitely took some thinking.

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I am planning to keep this mummy to a large wall hanging size, and I am declaring this, in writing, on this blog, so he doesn't end up life-size (like the crazy Selvage Snowman).  If I start posting mummy legs on here, somebody please send me an email and tell me to Step. Away. From. The. Selvages.

 Per usual, this project will eat through quite a few selvages.  Thank you so, so much to everyone who keeps me stocked in selvages!!!

I bought this dotted fabric as a possible border.  I kind of like it, we'll see ...

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And now, for some linky fun, I'm hanging out with some other crafty types over at Fabric Tuesday and WIP Wednesday!

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Thanks for stopping by.  And thanks so so much for the wonderful response to my previous post about my debut novel.  I sincerely appreciate all the kind words and support!

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Posted by Riel Nason on The Q and the U.

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The Summer of Sewing Smaller Stuff?

 I've made three quilts lately which were queen-sized or larger, so I think I am going to declare the next couple of months The Summer of Sewing Smaller Stuff ... smaller as in smaller quilts, like lap-size maybe, perhaps a pillow, perhaps (gasp!) a wall hanging ... we'll see.  I thought I'd show some of the things that are on my list of sewing to-dos. 

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Above are my selvage countdown squares.  As you can see I have a big pile.  My original idea for these now seems a little boring, so new possibilities are brewing ...

 And I do have another selvage idea that doesn't involve the squares above but goes in a different direction entirely ... I'm so excited about this one!!!  And I am definitely telling myself that it doesn't have to be something life-sized like the Selvage Snowman.  Smaller is good.  Repeat after me.  Smaller is good.  Smaller is good.

 Then of course there are my I-Spy hexies, which are my travelling project.

 And my vintage sheet obsession continues with this new quilt I just started ...

 Speaking of vintage, check out this vintage pillowcase I found the other day!  Cutest ever!!!  So these bears will quickly be made into something.  Pillows are small right?

 I Spy Planet Hexy still needs to be quilted.  It is kind of more medium than small, and I can't decide if I should send it out for quilting or do it myself.  I really want to do it myself, but I will have to get a walking foot.  Up until now I have just used the regular foot on the machine, but I would want to be really careful with this cool quilt ...

And finally on the topic of small, my daughter is small.  (Although don't tell her that, she is a BIG GIRL now, since she's four and everything).  I am looking forward to a summer of T-ball for her, 3 pitch for my son, lots of fun with family, friends, the pool, parks, picnics and lots of summer travel ...

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Plus there is one more thing.  Although I don't mention it here much, what I do with most of my time is write.  (Here's a smidge about me, the "writer" on my literary agent's website) I am within days of finishing the first draft of my second novel.  My first novel, called The Town That Drowned is coming out in September.  I have lots of fun stuff falling into place for the summer and fall for book promotion.  I have been getting some exciting news from my publicist about literary festivals, book tour stops and book signings.  I can't wait to share more information with everyone as the novel moves closer to release. 

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I hope everyone has a wonderful summer.  I really appreciate everyone who takes a few minutes of their summer to stop in here and hang out with me for a bit!

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I'm linking up with W.I.P. Wednesday.  Cheers,  Riel

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Posted by Riel Nason on The Q and the U

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Playing with Vintage Sheets ...

 I'm still working hard trying to get all my writing-related things finished up before my son and daughter are home for the summer, but, as I work away, I have set up a little project to play with during breaks ...

 I am experimenting with vintage sheets by making a simple little quilt just to see how these older fabrics are to work with.  I have some more ambitious ideas for these sheets in the future, so I wanted to try a little test quilt first.

And the results of my experiment:  no problems at all.  Except I should add "yet" as knowing me there could still be quilting problems.  But hopefully by Monday I'll have a pretty wee quilt to show.  Happy Weekend!

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And thanks so much for all the wonderful comments lately.  I haven't been able to respond like I usually do, but I sincerely appreciate them!

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Posted by Riel Nason on The Q and the U

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I Spy Planet Hexy Quilt Top

This is possibly the strangest quilt I've made yet, but I think I LOVE strange.  My son Eli (he's six) and I decided together to call this quilt I Spy Planet Hexy.  Those tall pointy triangles are towers.  All the hexies are piled ever-so-carefully on top of them. (Click any photo to enlarge if you wish)

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It is my own design.  I can't remember the thought process that led me to this, but it was a jump from idea to idea to idea before I came to Planet Hexy.

This quilt is for my son who will be finished kindergarten on June 24.  I must say I love a good milestone as an excuse to make another quilt.  *wink*

It is made all from scraps or stash.  I didn't buy any new fabric for it.  The hexies are I Spy scraps.  The towers are Kona scraps left from my I Spy mega quilt (back at my house now waiting for binding).  The sky background is fabric I had bought as a possibility for the background of The Selvage Snowman quilt, but it had been too light for that.  The grey rock fabric is some I had bought for a pillowcase but didn't use.

There are 146 one inch hexagons in it.  I'll probably add a few more to take it to 150.  I was wary of overdoing it with the hexies that are falling off the towers, but I think a few more wouldn't hurt anything, we'll see.

I am planning to quilt it myself.  I think I will do some very simple straight lines.  Unfortunately my sewing machine has had a bit of a bad attitude lately and has been throwing some thread-tangling tantrums, so it will need to go in for repair before I attempt any quilting.

You may remember that the I Spy hexies were supposed to be my summer travelling project.  Well, I'm still going to make more.  I have more ideas for them.  And my daughter Tess could always use her own hexy quilt.

Now an off topic message: Happy Birthday Dad!

And for some linky fun, I'm hanging out with other talented crafty sorts at {Sew} Modern Monday , Made by You Monday , Manic Monday ... and of course I have to party with Fabric Tuesday at Quiltstory.  Click any link to see piles of fabulous projects by bloggers from around the world!

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Thanks for stopping by!  Happy Quilting!

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Sneak Peek: So About Those I-Spy Hexies I Was Making ...

 ... well, they got turned into a quilt.  I mean my son will be done kindergarten soon and he needed a quilt to celebrate that accomplishment, right?

 This quilt is nothing like the original idea I had for the hexies, but once I thought of doing this, the idea really took hold and I had to act!

 I'm not sure if the quilt is "high-concept" or just plain strange, but I do know my son and I both like it and it is certainly one of a kind ... you'll see what I mean tomorrow when I post the whole thing.  Fingers crossed the sun will come out later for some good photos.

Happy Sunday!  The yard is calling me!

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HNIC: Hexy Night in Canada

 I made some more hexies.  These are supposed to be my summer travelling project for in the car, but they also seemed like a good little project to work on while watching the Stanley Cup finals.

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I added quite a few to my pile last night even though I put them away about midway through the second period.

 These are still for the I-Spy hexy quilt.  I am also adding some more abstract things to spy like shapes -- dots, squares, etc.

 I like that little pirate monkey.

Here are a lot of them on my design wall.  That little fussy cut school bus scrap is going in a mug rug I'm making for an end-of-year gift for the bus driver.

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There is sun here today!  Yay!  We are heading out to a waterfall this afternoon.  I hope the woods are dried out enough that it isn't too bad a walk for the kids. Happy Sunday!

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And P.S. This is my 200th post!  I will have a small giveaway to celebrate tomorrow!

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Hey There Hexy Ladies

 Last post I mentioned that a few days ago we travelled to PEI.  Well, it takes 3.5 hours to drive from our place to Charlottetown, so I needed a little something to do on the drive ...

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Let me introduce these hexy ladies.  Those are 1 inch hexagons.

 I am making novelty I-Spy type hexies as my summer travel project.  They are just to make as we're driving somewhere.  I have an end project in mind, a hexagon I-Spy quilt.  It won't all be hexagons, but rather hexies appliqued in a pattern.  I have the idea in my head and I think it will work.  I probably need 192 hexagons for a good lap-sized quilt.

 It just takes the smallest of scraps to make these.  

Fun!  Do you have a summer travel project?

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Happy Quilting!
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I'm linking up with {Sew} Modern Monday and Made by You Monday
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And since this is my summer travel work in progress, I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday.

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I Spy Quilt Top Layout

 It seems I have been working on this I Spy quilt a long time ... or maybe it just feels that way because the kids keep asking me if it's done yet.  I love their excitement about it.  And it is finally close to finished.

 This is the first time I've shown it with the large squares sewn together.  There are 16 blocks made of 25  4 inch squares each and sashed in 16 different colours of Kona solids.  The sashing is 2.5 inches wide. 

 Across the top I'm adding this band of squares along with the letters spelling "I Spy."  The fabric I had to fussy cut the letters from only had lowercase letters so I actually used the lowercase "l" as an uppercase "I."  I just couldn't use a lowercase "i" so thankfully there was a solution.  I am kind of old school and can't stand seeing "I" as a word as lowercase.  Know what i mean ... ;-)

 So the quilt is currently at 469 squares, all different.  I certainly used many of the same fabrics over (good ones with large repeats), but the exact image isn't the same in any square.  And I thought I was done, but I want another 69 squares to put a border across the bottom.  It will be just like the one on the top to balance it out and make the whole thing more rectangular.  I have almost enough squares cut now.

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When I told my husband I was adding the last *few* squares, he said, "Why stop now, why not just go for 1000 squares? Then you could cover the whole room."  (Cut to me rolling my eyes)  I told him that smarty pants comments like that would end up on the blog. Anyway, as far as the quilt goes I will admit I am very much the sort to say, well I already put a lot of time in it, so what's a little more? It's totally worth it.  

Anyway, I LOVE it and hopefully within a couple of weeks I will be able to show it all quilted and bound.  (It will be going out to be quilted ... it is going to be about 90 by 108 I think ... )

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I'm linking up to W.I.P. Wednesday. And I'm going to try two new linkies for fun -- The Sundae Scoop, and The Sisters Sunday Link Party!  Happy Quilting! 

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Wordless Wednesday: I Spy Quilt Block Progress

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I Spy Quilt Progress

I have wanted to make a true I-Spy quilt for sooooo long that now that I'm doing it I'm perhaps going a little overboard ... err, I mean trying to make it the biggest and best I can.
So far I have 400 different 4 inch squares which I'm sewing into 25 patches. I'm making 16 of these.

I love, love, love all the squares. The quilt is made of scraps of pretty much every novelty fabric I've ever had, plus fabrics given to me by so many quilty friends (including a fun I-Spy swap).

My kids are really excited for me to get this quilt done. They keep asking for updates.

You can see in the photo above that I am bordering each 25 patch with a solid.

I ordered 16 different Kona solids to use. As tempting as it was to just make the quilt a giant sea of patchwork since I love quilts made of simple squares, I wanted to use the solids to dress it up a bit, but more importantly, help make the I-Spy game easier to play. With 400 squares, finding an item could be tricky, so the colours can be used as hints. As in, "I spy something in the green square ..."

These are the Kona colours I have. I am tempted to put a border on the quilt too. I just don't know. I may actually be able to scrape up another 100 different squares, we'll see. Knowing me, it probably will end up with a border since I have this vision of the "ultimate" I-Spy quilt in my mind ...

Just a tip I thought I'd throw out there in case this is a new idea you want to try (maybe everyone already does this, I don't know) Anyway, I often fussy cut up panels to make really unique I-Spy squares. Panels are fabulous for getting fancy pictures to use. I bought the panel above last weekend for $2.19. Every dog on the family tree is different and cut out nicely into a 4 inch square. So the price of the panel was about that of a fat quarter, but I was able to get many more individual squares, all different, than I ever would have from a single fat quarter. I know many panels are more expensive than this, but even for a little more $$, it is worth it I think for a special quilt to thrill a child.

On other quilting fronts, look what Amy sent me!! Thanks so much!!!

And Jean from the KVQG. Selvages and some I-Spy fabric scraps. At the top is a vintage Robert Kaufman print of a dollhouse, perfect! Thanks!!!

And Nancy from the KVQG, who had given me a selvage mountain previously, had more! Thanks!!! Quilting friends are the best.

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday. Click on over if you want to see lots of other great posts about what other quilters are working on.

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