Stars and Orange

Happy Friday!  It's a crisp fall day here, but mostly sunny.  This is my Stars in a Time Warp quilt, #1.
I wrote about piecing it HERE.
How new/old does something have to be before it's a UFO?  If it's less than a year, does it still count as a UFO?
I finished this top last February, and it just waited patiently to be quilted.  My friend Joey did the quilting on her long arm.  She did a wonderful Baptist Fan all over design, which she does freehand.  (Joey is amazing.)  All I had to do was make the binding and sew it on.

The backing came from my stash, a nice repro I bought on sale at J. J. Stitches in Sun Prairie.

I really wanted to bind it in red, but I'm trying to give other colors a chance.  This binding is a brown/red paisley print.

Look--orange!  This block has cheddar corners!  I am having a real love affair with orange.
It just so happens orange is the color for September for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
Here's what I've been making for that.
First, the house blocks.

There are 9 of these this month.

Candy corn house, made with fabric given to me by a friend (thanks, Mary Z!)

School bus house.   I think a crazy bus lady lives here, driven nutty by noisy kids.

Party house!

Can you see the sky above this house?  It's from a scrap of Route 66 fabric I got at a flea market.  On the right it says Chicago in orange letters, and on the left is Oklahoma City (mostly caught in the seam allowance).  We live near Chicago, and my mom lives in Oklahoma City, so I just had to use these pieces.

The rest of the houses are tropical, with lots of yummy orange.
Now for the Buckeye Beauty blocks.  I got carried away, and made 11 of them.

This group of 6 fabrics didn't want to play nicely with others, so they are just paired with white.

I think these animals are dogs?  Maybe Corgis?

Halloween fun!

These 5 were more friendly, so I could use 2 prints and white.

Orange fish from a feed sack!

Autumn leaves from a feed sack scrap, plus odd orange shapes in the 4 patches.
I think orange is my new favorite color.
Whatever color is your favorite, I hope you get to sew with it this week.
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Today's link ups are:
Busy Hands Quilts
Crazy Mom Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Scrappy Chevrons

Hello!  Welcome to my blog!  Fall is in the air here in Wisconsin, so I'm taking some pictures outside before the snow starts to fly.
Today's finish is a scrappy chevron quilt.  I just can't resist chevrons.  It must be something about the cheerful ups and downs.  This quilt will be donated to a local family in need.
I got started on this completely by accident.  It's really the fault of Angela at soscrappy for hosting the fabulous Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
One set of my blocks for the challenge this year are little houses.  I'm cutting the roof pieces for the houses from 3.5 in. strips, like this:

I use my Companion Angle ruler, as you can see.
Just one problem...

There's a triangle left over on the left, and the strip now has an angle.  Not to worry, I can fix that!

Using my Easy Angle ruler, I cut a triangle from the strip, and made sure the first triangle is perfect.  Now I've got a roof for my house block, a straight strip to go back in the 3.5 in. box, and 2 extra triangles.
What can I do with the extra triangles?

How about this?  I can sew a dark print to a light print to make a square.  Then I can add two more dark triangles to make a larger triangle.  Adding a plain white triangle makes this a 6.5 in. (6 in. finished) block.  So each block uses 3 scrappy dark triangles and 1 light one.  Since the roof pieces for my houses are all dark, this worked out.  I just had to cut mostly light pieces.
I was thinking about setting them like this, but then the Chevron juju took over.

Here are all the blocks, 99 of them, to go 9 across and 11 down.
And here's the finished quilt, laid out on the floor.

If you'd like to make one of these, here's the recipe.
For each block, cut 1 light and 3 dark triangles from a 3.5 in. strip with the Easy Angle ruler (or any other ruler that works).
Sew a light triangle to a dark triangle to make a square.
Add a dark triangle to the top of the square. It should be touching the light triangle, and the right angle should be on the right.
Add a dark triangle to the left side of the square.  It should also be touching the light triangle, and the right angle should be on the right.
Cut white triangles from a 6.5 in. strip with the Easy Angle or other ruler.
Add the pieced triangles to the white triangles to make a 6.5 in. square.
(It works best to press after each of these steps.)
Make 99 blocks.
There are two kinds of rows that make up the quilt, row A and row B.  For row A, arrange the blocks so that the white triangles form a larger triangle, like the bottom row on the quilt above.
For row B, arrange the pieced triangles to form larger triangles across the row.
Alternate the rows in the quilt.  You can start with either one.  I started with an A row, so I made 6 A rows and 5 B rows.  If you start with a B row, make 6 B rows and 5 A rows.
I added 3.5 in. wide borders (because that was all I had of that wonderful fabric!).
The finished quilt should be roughly twin-sized, about 60 in. wide x 72 in. long.
I quilted it simply, up and down across the quilt, with the presser foot against the seams.  I added a row of quilting in the plain white areas using the quilting guide attachment to keep it straight.  Well, mostly straight.  The binding is red bandana print, just for fun.

BTW, here's the house block I was making:

 Why on earth didn't I buy more of that gorgeous orange?
 Have a lovely pieceful week!
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches
Linking up today with
Busy Hands Quilts
Crazy Mom Quilts
Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Hurricane Quilts, Free Patterns

Thank goodness the recent hurricanes are over, and people can start putting their lives back together.  All my family members in Florida are okay, although my brother and his girlfriend in Key West are still struggling with lack of running water and electricity.  Thanks for the prayers on their behalf.
Three more quilts are ready to go to Texas, for kids who have been through Hurricane Harvey and the Houston flooding.  I had hoped to get these done last week, but you know how it goes.
All of these are made from simple patterns, and can easily be used by groups or individuals.

Up first is a Scrappy Bricks quilt.  I made this using a pattern from the Austin, Texas Linus Connection web site.  Apparently this is one they use a lot.  All of the pieces are 4.5 in. wide.  The rectangles are 4.5 x 8.5, and the squares are of course 4.5 x 4.5.  I made the baby quilt size, which finishes 40 in. x 40 in.  Other sizes are listed on the pattern, and are mostly just adding more rows.  Click HERE to go to the one page PDF.  This is a great scrap buster.

The other two quilts are Trip Around the World.  Here's the pink and purple one...

And here's the blue and green one.
I have made several of these quilts for different causes, and I always use the same method.  I know these can be strip pieced, but I make them from squares.  I have used 4.5 in. squares, which makes a quilt 36 in. x 36 in., but both of these were made with 5 in. squares, so they measure roughly 40 in. x 40 in.  It's convenient if you have scraps cut in this size, but you may have to dig into yardage for some of the fabrics.  I find it easiest to use two colors for each quilt (in this case blue and green), and I look for fabrics with both colors in them to help blend the prints together.

When I work on these I lay them out on the floor, and place them in "rounds".  The first square is the center, in this case a medium blue print.  I'll use the same print for the four outer corners, so I need 5 squares in this fabric.
The second round needs 4 squares, in this case the blue chameleons.  I like something eye-catching in this round.  The pink quilt has castles in this spot.
Round three uses 8 squares, which are a turtle print here.
The fourth round uses 12 squares, a sort of crackled print in this quilt.

The next two rounds use 16 squares each, and are the largest in the quilt.  My quilt has a Go Diego Go print for the 5th round.  I bought it years ago to make something for my oldest grandson.  He's 12 now, (did I mention I procrastinate somewhat?) so this is a good use for the fabric.  My 6th round, also 16 squares, is a blue print with swirls.

Round seven needs 12 squares, in this case a jungle print.  I often include something lighter, like prints with a cream background, in one or two rounds, to brighten things up.
Round 8 takes 8 (that's easy to remember!).  I know you can't see it, but my fabric for this round is a green print with numbers on it.
And that takes us to the corners, which are 4 blue squares in the same print as the center.

So that's a total of 81 squares, set in 9 rows of 9 squares each.  This is easy, especially if you already have squares cut, and makes a nice sized quilt.

I've got my eye on another free pattern to make.  It's by Bonnie Hunter, so you know it's terrific, plus it uses 5 in. squares.  I've never seen this one on her free pages or in any of her books.  The pattern makes a quilt 60 in. x 70 in. Click HERE to go to Bonnie Hunter's Sticks and Stones.  It's a 3 page PDF.

I am absolutely in awe of all the people across the country (and even the world!) sending help to the hurricane victims in Texas and Florida.  All of us working together in our own small ways can make a real difference.
Wishing you joy and peace,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Today's Link Ups:
Crazy Mom Quilts
Can I Get A Whoop Whoop
Busy Hands Quilts

Sunshine and Shadow

The sunshine is streaming in here today, and I actually have finished another UFO.  It's a half log cabin quilt in a set called sunshine and shadow.

This is what the blocks look like.  I used 1.5 in. strips from my overflowing scraps to make them, way back in March of 2015.  Click HERE to go to the tutorial.

The blocks are set to create these on-point squares of light and dark.  I quilted concentric squares to emphasize the piecing.  I did the quilting on my domestic machine, one half of the quilt at a time.

Here's a shot of the border, binding, and back.  Most of the prints are 1800s reproductions, including the back, which I got on sale at J. J. Stitches in Sun Prairie.  It looks like old wallpaper to me.  Which of course means I love it.

I'm trying to get out of my red binding rut, so I went with black on this one.
The name of this pattern has always seemed appropriate to me, since all our lives have ups and downs, sunshine and shadow.  It has seemed even more relevant in recent days, with sunshine here and shadow hanging over my family members in Florida due to the upcoming hurricane.  If you're inclined to prayer, please include my three brothers and their families.
In other news, here's what else I'm working on.

I've got 3 baby-sized quilts ready to quilt.  These will go to Houston via Austin when done.  The Austin chapter of Linus Connection is making sure kids affected by Hurricane Harvey get donated quilts.  Click HERE to go to their web site for instructions and their address.

Loot!  This pile of wonders is what I bought at a flea market last weekend.  Fabric, yarn, and scraps!

These are my favorites--baggies of cut pieces and strips, plus a small stack of cat fabrics!  I'm already using some of these scraps in my rainbow scrap challenge quilt.
I'm going to go sew now, and keep an eye on the weather.
Be safe this week.
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

This week's link ups:
Busy Hands Quilts
Crazy Mom Quilts

Quilts for Children

I love making quilts, ANY kind of quilts, but my favorites will always be quilts for children.  This is my adorable youngest grandson posing with his new quilt.

I made the top before he was born.  It's bigger than the usual baby quilt, but not as big as a twin.

I just knew he would love cars and trucks and fire engines, and he really does.  I think he's influenced by his daddy and big brother.

I finally made time to quilt it.  The quilting is done very simply, mostly in the ditch.  In the border, I tried to make it look like a road.  The center line has really long stitches.

Here's the back, one of my favorite polka dots.

In other news, sometimes, procrastination pays off.  I had been dragging my feet about sending some baby quilts to Quilts for Kids in Pennsylvania when the hurricane hit Texas last week.

So I boxed up three baby quilts, and sent them to Linus Connection in Austin, Texas, to be distributed to children affected by Hurricane Harvey.
Click HERE to go to their web page for instructions on mailing, etc.  Linus Connection is a 501(c)(3) organization, very similar to what we know here in Wisconsin as Project Linus.

Here's the next one I'm making.  I hope to send a new batch next week.

None of us can do everything, but all of us can do something.

I wish you good weather, warm hugs, and lots of lovely quilts.
Cheers,
Sylvia
Linking up this week with Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  Crazy Mom Quilts, and Busy Hands Quilts.