Modern Selvage Quilting - winner of the book

I'm popping in quickly this morning to announce the winner of the giveaway of a copy of Riel Nason's book, Modern Selvage Quilting. You can get to know Riel better on her The Q and the U.

This randomly drawn comment (after I deleted the duplicate which, I am guessing, were caused by blogger being sluggish) for the winner of a copy of this fantastic book - Modern Selvage Quilting - was #66 - mb - RI, who blogs at Quilts in the Hood.

If you have not yet done so, you might want to check out the rest of the Modern Selvage Quilting book reviews on the blog hop:

May 10 Riel at C&T Publishing Blog

May 11 Cindy at Live a Colorful Life

May 12 Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl

May 13 Diane at Butterfly Threads Quilting

May 16 Krista at Poppyprint

May 17 Casey at The Studiolo

May 18 Leanne at She Can Quilt

May 19 Sandy at Upstairs Hobby Room

May 20 Mel at The Quilting Room with Mel

May 21 Riel at The Q and the U

I'm off to sew and work and enjoy this rainy long weekend - the huge Alberta fires have made me appreciate the rain far more than I normally would!

Best,

Leanne

Modern Selvage Quilting - A Book Review and Giveaway

While I have not had the chance yet to meet Riel Nason in person, I have seen one of her quilts in real life - at Quilt Canada - and it was fantastic. Riel is creative and playful in her designs, and reading about them on her blog - The Q and the U  - has always made me smile. Riel is a Canadian, living in a small town on Canada's east coast in New Brunswick.

When Riel asked me if I would share a review of her new book, Modern Selvage Quilting - I jumped at the chance. Riel is not just a quilter, she is also a published fiction author too. Her quilting book is full of her own voice and her own stories. It is a pleasure to read and funny too. All the photos in this post are from the book.

Riel points out that selvages are just another kind of fabric scrap. Modern Selvage Quilting provides you with advice on how to save your selvages and how to select and use them in projects. Riel provides three different methods for effectively piecing the selvages and each is clever, fully illustrated and easy to execute.

There are instructions for several projects in the book as well, from pincushions to pillows to placemats to quilts. Riel shares many tips as well, all of which focus on using selvages easily and effectively. While Riel gave me a copy of her book for this review, I would have bought my own copy if she had not. If you are interested in selvage quilting, this is the book to get.

Now I have to admit to not saving many selvages, although I have a few jars of the prettiest ones. But, armed with this new book, I might just have to change my practices - the projects are just so appealing.

Riel asked me which quilt I would make if I had an unlimited supply of selvages. I have to say that I am in love with that giant star and it might just be the push I need to save my selvages.

As part of the blog hop introducing Modern Selvage Quilting, I get to give away one copy of the book. If the winner is in the U.S.A. they will get a hard copy and if the winner is from the rest of the world they will receive an e-copy. To win, leave me one comment letting me know if you save your selvages or might start doing so and what you have or plan to make with them.  The give away will be open to enter until 10 pm MDT on May 22 and I will draw a winner randomly after that.

Please, please, if you want to win a copy of this lovely book, make sure that I can find you. If you are not sure that your email is connected to your comments, put it in the comment too, or your instagram handle or your blog location. If I can't find the winner I will draw again.

You should check out the rest of the book reviews on the blog hop:

May 10 Riel at C&T Publishing Blog

May 11 Cindy at Live a Colorful Life

May 12 Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl

May 13 Diane at Butterfly Threads Quilting

May 16 Krista at Poppyprint

May 17 Casey at The Studiolo

May 18 Leanne at She Can Quilt

May 19 Sandy at Upstairs Hobby Room

May 20 Mel at The Quilting Room with Mel

May 21 Riel at The Q and the U

Best,

Leanne

May Scraptastic Tuesday Winners

Today we announce the winners of the randomly drawn prizes for the May Scraptastic Tuesday monthly link. I have no new scrappy project to share today, so I am going to get right to the prizes.

First, thank you to our fantastic and generous sponsors. If you are shopping, check them out as they are my personal favourite shops. And if you have time, send them short a note thanking them for sponsoring this monthly event. It makes it just that extra bit more fun to share scrappy projects with some randomly shared prizes thrown in and these folks go the distance to make that possible for all of us.

InLinkz.com

The winners are:

• Sew Me a Song - $20 gift certificate - #5 - Myra from Busy Hands Quilts

• Massdrop - First of Infinity Fat Quarter Bundle - #61 - Julie from Julie's Quilts and Costumes

• Fluffy Sheep Quilting - a €20 (20 Euro) gift certificate - #4 - Karen from Quilts...etc.

• Fat Quarter Shop - $25 gift certificate - #33 - Debbie from A Quilter's Table

• Sew Sisters Quilt Shop - $25 gift certificate - #49 - Logan Stitches

• Green Fairy Quilts - $25 gift certificate - #23 - Cathy from Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting

• Karen Lewis Textiles  - scrap pack - #7 - Diane from Flickr

• Mad About Patchwork - a $40 gift certificate - #62 - Gayle from Mangofeet

Congratulations to our winners, and watch for an email about your prizes.

Please plan to join Nicky from Mrs. Sew and Sow and I for the June Scraptastic Tuesday link on the second Tuesday, which will be June 14. In the meantime, you can go back to check the May links for inspiration and share your scrappy projects using the #scraptastictuesday tag anytime.

Best,

Leanne

Pivot - Ta Da!

I finally named this little quilt Pivot. She is 20" square. I made her for the Lethbridge Modern Quilt Guild modern mini quilt paint chip challenge. We are hoping that maybe we can hang our quilts together in public somewhere soon. Once I find my paint chips again I will come back and add a photo here of them. They are grey, creamy white and orange.



Of course, I left this project to the last minute. Our guild meets on first Tuesday night of the month. So I started on Monday night. Luckily I had thought a lot about what I wanted to make so I was able to get right to work. I had made a block very similar to this for Stephanie in Bee Sewcial and I took this opportunity to make a similar one. Next time I will try for about 60' square.

This pieces for the top were cut without a ruler. I did keep my ruler nearby to help me stay straight-ish rather than veering off to the side too much. Each of the fabrics I used were left overs - scraps I guess - and I did not have any extra, so I wanted to avoid too many totally unusable cuts.

I have to say that I am in love with the combination of thin not straight lines and the creamy white and light grey to make the. I admit to choosing my paint chips with this plan in mind.



I started quilting Pivot that same night but it was late and I was tired. I used a variegated orange Star thread for the triangle and a variegated grey Aurifil thread for the stripes. The quilting is dense not straight lines, unevenly spaced. I used my domestic machine because, perhaps surprisingly, it is very challenging to quilt lines on the diagonal on the long arm and easy to do on the domestic. I got up early and quilted before work and took a couple of coffee breaks and finished the quilting at lunch.



My guild is hoping to hang these quilts in a show and I knew I wanted to wash the quilt for the added texture that would add. So the quilt was larger than 20" - by about 3" on each side. Also since I knew I was not going to have time to wash it after it was bound and still take it to the guild meeting, so I washed it before I bound it. I trimmed off the extra backing and batting and zig zag stitched the edges before throwing the quilt in the washer and dryer. Luckily I was working from home that day.



I'm not sure everyone knows how mini quilts come out of the washer and dryer so I took this photo. I then steamed her flat. I did not press the iron down much as I steamed the quilt as I wanted to keep the texture. I let the quilt rest for a bit and then I trimmed it to 20" square.



I added a white binding to match the stripes. I did not want the binding to steal the show and if I had had more time I might have used a faced binding instead. Here is the back which is a fabric that I thought complimented the quilt nicely. I used a single fold binding (tutorial here) and hand stitched her after work.

'

I shared all these photos except the top one on instagram as I went. Pivot was finished in time for my guild meeting, the last binding stitch went in 30 minutes before I had to leave. 

I am going to share her about the internet, I really love this little quilt. I am linking up with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It up Friday.

I've also linked up at Fabric Tuesday.

Best,

Leanne

Scraptastic Tuesday - the May link is open!

It's the second Tuesday of May already, and the Scraptastic Tuesday monthly link is open.

First I need to report on the progress of my scrap sorting exercise. As you will remember, I have become frustrated about the fact that after over a year of trying to focus on using scraps, I still had overflowing boxes of scraps. So last month I vowed to empty them and cut them up.

I am pleased to say I have been through 4 boxes of coloured scraps and most of my box of low volume scraps.

I have been taking out any further pieces that can be seen as a strip (I did this once before and that led to me making Villa which is the scrappy quilt I shared last month). Then I piled any already cut squares - it seems some time ago I threw a bunch of left over charm squares and swap squares into the scrap boxes. Then I pressed the bits left over and cut out squares in 5", 6", or 2.5". I picked these square sizes by the size of a charm square, a charm square cut into 4 and the size of a number of squares I found in the boxes. There are also some bits of 3" and 3.5" squares left over from projects.

Before I started this project I put a new blade in my rotary cutter and after I had cut the 4.5 boxes, I changed that blade again. I really do not like cutting fabric, so I put on Netflix too and made the best of it. But in the interests of full disclosure, this project is not fun for me, so I focus on the end goal and go as quickly as I can while still cutting safely.

I admit to tossing out the remaining bits. I am sorry to say that I just need some finality here and I know after all this time that I am not going to use them up. Also, I am going to try really hard to cut new scraps I save in this manner and not create more boxes and bags of bits and pieces.

I have it in mind to use the squares for a pixelated rainbow sort of quilt and some value quilts likely with HSTs.  I want to create that pinboard I imagined last month with other scrappy projects using squares. My other plan for this month is also to  cut up the 3 other scrap boxes I have and pull out the 4 or so bags of other scraps that need to be sorted and such. I'll report back next month on my progress.

Now its time for you to share your scrappy projects, plans and ideas.

InLinkz.com

A huge thank you to our generous sponsors for providing the following prizes which will be awarded randomly among those of you who link up.

• Sew Me a Song - $20 gift certificate

• Massdrop - First of Infinity Fat Quarter Bundle

• Fluffy Sheep Quilting - a €20 (20 Euro) gift certificate

• Fat Quarter Shop - $25 gift certificate

• Sew Sisters Quilt Shop - $25 gift certificate

• Green Fairy Quilts - $25 gift certificate

• Karen Lewis Textiles  - scrap pack

• Mad About Patchwork - a $40 gift certificate

Please join Nicky from Mrs. Sew and Sow and I by linking up a blog post or flickr or instagram photo sharing a scrappy project, in progress or finished, or your thoughts on dealing with your scrap mountain:

• You don't have to have joined us before, everyone is welcome.

• One link per person, and it will be your entry into the random draw for the prizes. It is the same link up here and at Nicky's blog - Mrs. Sew and Sow - so you only need to link up on one of our blogs.

• This link is to share with our community about using your scraps, please don't use it to advertise your own products or events.

• You can link up from your blog, instagram or flickr, but you have to link up to be entered in the prize draw.

• Please visit at least a few of the links, they are very inspiring, and leave comments too as everyone loves to connect. 

• Use the Scraptastic Tuesday button and invite your friends to join us too. Please share our button, or a link or the hashtag #scraptastictuesday in your linked post or photo. 

• The link is open until next Monday night at 10:00 pm MST. We will announce the winners next Tuesday. 

• If you have trouble linking up, let me or Nicky know and we will get you sorted.

Best,

Leanne

An InLinkz Link-up

Tell Me A Story Quilt

Late last week I started making the Tell Me A Story Quilt. This pattern is from Amy Friend's new book, Intentional Piecing. I consider Amy a good internet friend who I have been able to meet in person several times too. Amy is super talented and creative and I so love her new book.



I originally thought I would make just one or two of these blocks to try them out, but no dice. I challenge you to make one and not be immediately hooked. They are foundation pieced and so they come together easily and are so crisp and pretty. I shared these blocks on Instagram but I have to share them here too.

That block above is about the strawberries, with hidden elephants in the border. I figure this will be a quilt for a child, and strawberries are always a favourite.



My story for this block is: "Let's go on an adventure little one." I have to say that although I don't see my stash as full of picture prints, I had no difficulty finding a stack to use.

Amy has started a Tell Me A Story story telling event, and you can join in too - it runs until June 1. There is a fantastic prize too.



My story for this block is: "Flo and Sally are two fluffy clouds floating along on a light breeze." My friends on Instagram has a lot to add to that story, it is fun to imagine. And that is why this will be such a fun quilt.



"This is Stella, a rare magic pink tiger-cat who hides in the tiger lilies. If you catch a glimpse of her you will have good luck." I am planning to make more this week.

I am also loving Amy's book. It is chock full of other fantastic quilt patterns which Amy has been sharing on her blog, During Quiet Time. After I finish with this quilt, I have a few other patterns that I have added to my list to make too.

If you want this excellent book, I can offer you a discount of 30% using the discount code FRIEND30 at the Lucky Spool website here.

Best,


Leanne