A Quick Road Trip With Some Fabric Pit Stops

 Last Sunday and Monday we took a quick trip to Halifax so that I could do a little presentation about my upcoming novel The Town That Drowned at a bookseller conference.  (It went well.  Everyone was super friendly and great)  It is only a four hour drive so en route we made some fun stops. 

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First up was Sackville, NB, which is very near the Nova Scotia border.  The swan above is a resident of a pond at the Mount Allison University campus.

 Here he (or she) is posing.

 There are actually two swans in the pond and they are friendlier than my kids would have liked.  One got out of the pond and walked over to us.  Tess took off running. 

 The true reason for our stop in Sackville was to visit the Sackville Waterfowl park.  It is a great spot with boardwalks over the water so you can see the birds.  We saw these ducklings.  Tess (age 4) called them "duck fawns".  I love how her logic works -- you see, she didn't know the word "ducklings", but she knew that baby deer are called "fawns", so baby ducks must be "duck fawns." 

 Next stop was my turn.  We drove right by the Value Village on the way in to Halifax so I bought some vintage sheets.

 Here is the Giant I-Spy quilt on the bed in the hotel. It will be travelling with us this summer.

 On Monday, before we came home we stopped at Atlantic Fabrics in Dartmouth.

 Big surprise, I bought Halloween fabric.

 Then we stopped at Dayle's in Amherst.  It is a huge old department store with a little Dry Goods department!

 And guess what?  They had a bit of Halloween fabric out at 50% off.  I should also say that a friend and I are putting together a raffle basket for our guild's show in the fall and our theme is Halloween fabric.  I will be cutting a FQ off each of these pieces to put them in the basket.

And a little more, all just small pieces.

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Happy Weekend!

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Posted by Riel Nason on The Q and the U

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

The Glowing Quilt

 The other night I was sitting on the back deck on our swing with Eli, my six-year-old son.  We were wrapped in his Log Castle Quilt.  He kept ducking under the quilt because he said he wanted to see it "glowing."

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The sun was setting and hitting it just right.  It did indeed glow if you were under it, wrapped up tight, blocking out any other light besides the sun filtering through.  These pictures give some idea, but don't quite capture it.   It is so great to be able to see things from a child's perspective!

 And of course kids say funny things.  I am not making this next story up.  Honest.  So, the other night (a different other night than the glowing quilt incident), my daughter Tess (she's four) came into bed with my husband and I.  After a bit she seemed as if she was having a bad dream and was tossing and turning and whimpering a little in her sleep.  I smoothed her hair and, while still asleep, she said forcefully, "No!!!  I can't find my FABRIC!"  Really.  I was laughing so much that both Tess and my husband woke up. 

Anyway, that's it for now -- just a couple of little things I wanted to write down and share so I won't forget them.  Happy Weekend everyone!

Fabric, Vintage Finds, Funky Photos and Facebook

 How's that for a long post title?  So I'll try to keep the writing here brief.

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First, the fabric.  In PEI, I had to pick up a few FQs, etc.  The ladies above you may recognise as some of the fussy cut hexy ladies that I showed a couple of posts ago.  That fabric is Quilter's World by Mary Lou Weidman, Benartex.

 And some Dr. Suess.

 I love collecting Halloween fabric.  The top one is Scary Night by Laurie Godin, Northcott and the bottom is by Sheri Berry.  I have a lot of Sheri Berry stuff.  I like her style.

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I would love to make an all-Halloween I-Spy quilt.  It would be so cool.  I may make it this year.  I'll just have to see how my Halloween stash looks, if I think I have enough variety yet.

 And now the vintage finds.  I finally got an old sewing box recently at a local estate sale.  And it's in great shape!  I have looked for one for a long time and passed over several that had a little damage or didn't open well.  This one was worth the wait ...

 Plus it was filled with vintage goodies!  I was happy to pay the $10.00 the seller was asking.

 And some vintage sheets.  I have nothing in mind for these.  They really are huge with SO much fabric in them though.  Could you ever make a ton of quilts with a good sheet collection!

 And onto the funky photos.  Neat, eh?  My daughter got a great kaleidoscope for her birthday from my parents.  I had to see if I could take some pics by putting the camera right up to the little eye hole ..

See any quilty inspiration in there?

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And finally Facebook.  I decided to hang with the cool kids and hooked my blog up as a Facebook page.  In reality, the content of the Facebook page will be about 90% the same as the blog, but I know everyone has their own favourite way to view online content and connect with other quilty sorts.  I have had a few friends ask me about connecting there, so if Facebook is your thing and you are interested in keeping up with my sewing adventures, there is a like button now on the blog sidebar.  Or to find me on Facebook, my page is called The Q and the U - Quilting Blog.

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And one more thing, THANK YOU so much to everyone who stops by here, I really appreciate it.  I see I have added to my Follower number quite a bit lately which is fab-u-lous.  (My son has a keen interest in my blog and asks every day if I have any new followers.  It's quite funny, I think he thinks it is like a hockey game score and each follower is like a goal for my team ;-) ...)  Anyway, having the blog really adds an extra element of fun to my whole quilting experience and really inspires me to keep going, thinking of new things to try, and sewing up a storm ...

Green Gables

 No quilts this time, but I thought you might enjoy some pictures of the Green Gables House in PEI.  It is a part of Lucy Maud Montgomery's Cavendish National Historic Site.  We visited there on Thursday.  My husband had to go to PEI for a conference so we tagged along.

 There are my kids about to go in the house.  This was right before I rushed up and explained the "house rules." We were fortunate to be there quite early in the day and it was early in the season so there was hardly anyone around.

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Lucy Maud Montgomery is one of my favourite novelists and certainly my favourite non-living writer.  My favourite book of hers is The Blue Castle.  I read the Emily series of her books as a child, but all the others including Anne of Green Gables as a adult.

 When you enter, you come to the large barn first.

 This is a side view.

 There are beautiful grounds.  This is the front lawn.

 This is more of the front lawn and a golf course in the distance.  Those trees along the golf course are the Haunted Wood.

 Doesn't this look inviting?

 Or this? 

 It is a large house with several bedrooms. 

 The ironing board is in the corner of the kitchen.

 And I could most certainly sit here and happily sew.  This is upstairs looking out onto the back yard.

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I read recently that when William and Kate come to Canada for their Royal Visit in July they are going to Green Gables as Anne of Green Gables was Kate's favourite book as a child.  The impact of that one book, Lucy Maud's debut novel, written in 1908, is absolutely astonishing.  When you are on the Island you can see that even today, it is at the core of the Island's tourism. 

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 And even beyond Cavendish, PEI is beautiful.  I took a pile of photos.

Look at the gorgeous yellow!

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Some quilty stuff to come next time.  Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Mother's Day: Some of Mother Nature's Other Mothers

For Mother's Day, I wanted to show some of the fabulous photos from my mother's blog Nature Tales and Camera Trails. All of the photos in this post were taken by her. I chose a few of my favourites showing mothers and babies.

Above is a female Wood Duck and her young.

My mother has countless great nature photos. She has an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time. I sometimes tease her and say it is like a sixth sense. I think maybe she is just so aware and appreciative of nature around her, that she notices things other people may not.
The photo above shows a young Osprey leaving the nest.
This tree swallow house is in my parents' backyard. The birds return each year.

My favourite New Brunswick animal, the white-tailed deer. It is very easy to find deer to photograph around here, but certainly not so much with their fawns.
A wary mother red fox and her kits.And finally, a Common Merganser and her ducklings.
I am so thankful to both my parents for my love of nature. If you'd like to surf over to my mother's blog, just click here.
Happy Mother's Day Mom. Love you.

Weekend Update

Most of my weekend was spent far away from my sewing machine, but I did make a little progress on the blue and green quilt for Eli's birthday. I basted it.
Then I began quilting it with variegated thread and nice wavy lines. (When I get to the quilting stage, I move my machine out of my home office/sewing room and up to the dining room table.)

La, la, la, oh sewing is so much fun ... until the above happened. Grrrr. And I will admit I've done that before too. I ran out of basting pins before I got out to the edge of the quilt, so when I was quilting away I didn't know that the backing fabric was folded underneath. Oh well, I have yet to make a quilt without using my seam ripper numerous times.

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I set it aside and will get back to quilting it again soon. Eli's birthday is this coming Saturday so that is my deadline.

The kids had fun doing a little spool bowling.

Other people have been showing some snow photos on their blog so I thought I'd join in. That is the stop sign at the school bus stop.

And here's our two-storey house. Hee, hee, so I may have angled the camera a bit, but you get the idea.

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Happy Quilting!