Happy Blocks with Black Prints, and More Color Block Stars

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

What's that hanging on the clothesline?  It's another Happy Blocks quilt top!

Last week Angela, our Rainbow Scrap Challenge fearless leader, challenged us to use black, brown, or neutral scraps to make quilt blocks in October.   I admit, I don't use black fabrics much.  Most of my quilts are made for kids, and I want them to be colorful, cheerful, and fun.

But I do have lots of fun black prints, mostly given to me or bought as part of a box of scraps.

What if I cut them into squares, and surrounded them with bright solid fabrics?  

Eureka!  Happy blocks!  All 30 blocks have different centers.  I can't believe I had so many different prints.  

Bugs, a T. Rex, fireworks, happy faces, lots of dogs, and even an astronaut cat made their way into this quilt.

Once I started I couldn't stop.  I made all the blocks last Saturday, set them into rows on Sunday and Monday, and added the borders on Tuesday.  The blocks are 8 in. finished, and the top is 46 in. x 58 in.  When finished it will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee, to be given to a child in foster care.  

The border is also a black print, of books and book worms.

So thanks to Angela for the idea to use these cute prints. 

And thanks to Cynthia at the Quilting is More Fun Than Housework blog for the current block drive to benefit Many Hands and Many Hearts.  It's called Color Block Stars, and you can click HERE for directions and information.  I'm making the calmer ones for the block drive, and keeping the wilder ones to make a quilt to donate locally.

This week I made red blocks, first a "calmer" one:

and then a wild one, full of novelty prints:

Next was orange, calm first:

Then wild:

I'm mostly making these blocks from the squares in my 3.5 in. drawer, and I knew I'd have trouble finding very many orange novelty prints.  But I was surprised to have the same trouble with red.  I may have to do a little shopping.  (But only a little!) 

The weather has been beautiful lately.  My youngest grandsons and I have been hanging out at the playground in the park after school when time and their sports activities permit.  Little Guy posed for me on the rope bridge.

Buddy had just jumped down from crossing the top of the monkey bars.  They're both just a touch theatrical.

And a little goofy!

There are still some summer flowers here, but they will be gone soon now that it's October.  Soon we'll be ready for pumpkins and falling leaves, cold mornings and rainy days.  But for now we'll enjoy the end of summer while it lasts.  I don't want to miss a minute.

Take care this week, whatever the season or weather.  I hope you can take time for all the things you love.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Night Vision Quilt, Color Block Stars, and a Scrap Rainbow

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

One little quilt finished got finished this week!  I showed the top back before we went on vacation, so it was on the top of my list when we got back.  The pattern name is Night Vision, but I think it looks like a pinwheel, especially in these colors.

The cats were sleeping on it, so I washed it yesterday after I got the binding on.  It's extra crinkly, probably because the blocks did not lie perfectly flat.  C'est la vie!

All the prints I added to the blocks except the binding (sashing, border, and backing) are polka dots!  I didn't even realize I was doing that at the time.  A friend of mine loves dotted fabric, and has got me into loving it too.  BTW, all these polka dot prints were bought second hand.

I laid the quilt out on the floor to take another photo, but it was attacked!  Can you see the culprit's tail?  

All that exertion tired Snicky out, so he went to sleep under the china cabinet.

His sister, Little Lizzy, was looking out the window, sitting next to the Dead Plants Society.  Poor plants!  I have lots of work to do here.

A few more Color Block Stars got made, this time in green, as we finish up the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2025.  The "calm" one above is for the block drive for Many Hands and Many Hearts.  (Click HERE for directions.)

And here's the wild one, made from novelty fabrics.  Can you guess which one I love the best lol?

This one is a bit of a hybrid.  It's the first one I made, and I didn't really think about the recipients.  Are the novelty fabrics, like the Packers print, too much?  Should I send it to Cynthia, or keep this one for my wild version?  I can easily make her another calm one.

Is this a scrap monster, or a mini Mount Scrapmore?  No, it's just a pile of strings, most of which were given to me by my friend Joey.  The pile was bigger before I started a new project this week (more on that when I make more progress). 

While sipping my tea this morning I sorted the strings into a scrap rainbow.  I'm thinking of making string blocks again as part of next year's RSC.  It's so much fun using them up making something colorful and useful.

Oh dear, here I am planning MORE blocks, when my box of RSC block sets is overflowing!  Maybe I'll get to work on that today.

Have a wonderful week ahead, everyone!  And Happy Quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these great linky parties.

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge
 

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Back From Vacation, and Color Block Stars

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

We're back from our vacation in Edinburgh, Scotland.  It was a wonderful trip, but it is so good to be home.

Just walking down the streets of this modern but 900 year old town was amazing.  We took in lots of sights, including Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace.  In addition to all the historic wonders there were many textile things for a quilter to enjoy.

As is usual with us, we went to several museums.  In the National Museum of Scotland I saw a display about the color Turkey Red, which was often used in quilts of the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Above is a laboratory book recording experiments creating Turkey Red prints, from the United Turkey Red Co. Ltd., Dunbartonshire, Scotland, 1928-29.

 

They also had a Jacquard loom.  The pattern of the cloth woven on the loom was controlled by the punched cards, which are hanging in the background of the photo.  The weaving was done by hand (no electricity yet!).

Check out this sign!  It's a carved wooden likeness of a hand cranked sewing machine.  The shop it advertised sold hand made craft items.

Inspiration was everywhere, in tiled floors and brick houses as well as museum exhibits.

Plus there was an actual quilt shop!  There may have been another one too, but this was the only one I had time to go to.  It's called My Bearpaw.  It's a very small shop, with very kind and helpful ladies.

This is the fabric I bought and crammed into my already-stuffed suitcase.  Some of it is British made.  I bought a few fat quarters, a few fat eighths, and three scrap bundles.  I can hardly wait to start sewing with it!

I didn't take any quilt sewing with me, but I did knit these two hats to donate.  I'm trying to use up some of the yarn stash to make warm items for kids.  Winter is coming! 

After I got home, I made this Color Block Star for the current Many Hands and Many Hearts block drive, which will run through the end of November.  (Click HERE for details and directions.)  Because these quilts may go to anyone, I tried to choose squares that were calm prints, like florals and geometrics.  I made it in blue because we're finishing up blues for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

But I liked it so much I just had to make one with all novelty prints!  And I loved that so much I'm going to make a whole quilt from these!  I will make one block for the block drive and one for me in each color.

I did light blue next.  Calm first, then ...

novelty explosion!  This is so much fun!

Look who I found in the basement stash!  Little Lizzy must think I put those fat quarters there just for her.  Both cats were well looked after by family while we were gone, but have been keeping very close to us since we came back.  Guess they missed us!  We missed them, too.

I didn't always have internet while we were gone, so I have lots of quilt blog reading to catch up on.  Seems like a good way to spend the rest of this rainy day, while recovering from jet lag.

Have a wonderful week, everyone.  And happy quilting!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Hot Wheels! Dare to Be Rad!

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Yahoo, the grandkids are back in school, and I have more time for sewing!  I actually got a quilt finished this week.

Does this blue block explain the title?  It says Dare to be Rad! with the Hot Wheels symbol underneath.  Our quilt guild was given LOTS of Hot Wheels fabric scraps by a gentleman who once ran a fabric shop.  My friend The Amazing Colleen thought I would enjoy doing something with them, and of course she was right!

There are five different Hot Wheels prints, and two colorways of most.  To add more color and variety, I mixed in whatever car theme fabric I had, including wheels and tools, plus other vehicle prints.

The blocks are Bricks, with a center cut 3.5 in. x 6.5 in., and two outside pieces (in this case, dark blue) cut 2 in. x 6.5 in.  Easy and fun to make, and a good way to use the novelty prints I love.  The borders are a light blue Hot Wheels print.  They were already cut by the original owner.  All I had to do was trim them down and cut the right lengths.

The quilt is 46 in. x 52 in., so of course I had to piece the back.  Luckily I had another race car print, and some Tonka Truck print also donated by the same person.

Tiny little race cars print!  I have been looking for a home for this fabric for a long time.

Most of the quilting is my usual serpentine stitch grid, courtesy of Mrs. Pfaff, but I quilted parallel lines in the border to make a road for Hot Wheels type cars.  Vroom vroom!

These remind me of my brother.  He loved Hot Wheels cars, and used to always have one he was playing with, running it on the carpet or the couch or even on me while I was trying to read!

The blue fabric came from the sale at the museum last June.  There was one "regular" half yard or so piece, and 15 pieces cut into these weird triangles.  Long before I got to the binding, the triangles were all I had left, so I cut the binding from them.  For the binding I sewed together 13 short pieces.  Miraculously only one of the seams ended up in a corner.

I do have one question.  When did people stop saying things were "rad"?  1990s?  1980s?  Just how old is this fabric anyway?  It is in very good condition, so no worries there.

In other news, Colleen also gave me a scrap bag at our August guild meeting.   All the pieces were novelty prints!!!  This is the gallon bag dumped out on a table.

And this is all the pieces from the bag cut into either strips, squares or rectangles.  I just couldn't wait to start sewing some of these up.

Lots of the pieces were 6.5 in. long, and 4 or so inches wide.  I trimmed them to 3.5 x 6.5, just like the Hot Wheels fabrics, and made bricks with white sides.  I made 22 of these blocks from the new scrap bag pieces.  I'm adding in leftover bricks from the Hot Wheels quilt plus a few other stray rectangles to make the 42 I need for a new bricks quilt.

It is dangerous to give me new-to-me scraps and more time to sew.  I will definitely start new projects! I was watching a YouTube video from Merry Mabel Market about making half log cabin blocks from random scraps.  (By the way, I'm loving her videos!) I can't do random, but it did start me thinking about how cute half log cabin blocks would be made from these new scraps.  I drew up this block to use 2.5 in. strips.  

My blocks start with a 3.5 in. square, and each "round" is two strips 2.5 in. wide, in the same color.   I mixed the new scraps with my strips on hand.  The blocks are 9 in. finished, and I love them!  If I can stand to wait until January (iffy) I will make these for next year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

This year's RSC is almost over!  I finished the August aqua blocks, and it will soon be time to start setting this year's blocks together.  These are the Thrifty ones.

This is my favorite block this week!  The cat in the middle looks properly smug, crazy minions are popping up in the corner, and that yellow fish has a cheeky grin!

I'm going to go find my own properly smug cats for a cuddle or two, and then get some lunch.  Have a happy quilty week, everyone!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these fabulous link party hostesses:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge