Treadling A Rainbow

It's a beautiful Saturday morning, just right for treadling a rainbow--a Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt.

I'm finally putting my zigzag quilts together!  There will be two of these quilts, and this is the first.

There are eight rows in this quilt, and I'm setting them with a 2 in. sashing strip between each row.  The quilt needed to be a little longer, so this is what I thought of.

It adds a little more light space between each color, but kind of blends in to the white triangles.

You can see better with a close up. 
The second quilt will be set row to row.  Wonder which one I'll like best.

This is the fun fabric in the sashing strips.  It's some of the "loot" I got at Quilt Expo last month.  It never hurts to buy light fabric, especially when it's this cute.

Here's the other project I'm using as Leaders and Enders.  It's just a little squirrel, that came in out of the cold.

The pattern is Three Patch Chain, by Kim Brackett.  (I really love her books.)

It's the first quilt in this book, Scrap Basket Bounty.  The pattern is great.  I especially like the accurate pressing instructions, which make it easier to piece than it looks.

This is 8 blocks on my flannel wall.  All the pieces are scraps from my "collection".  My plan is to make a baby quilt for Jack's Basket from these.

We took Little Buddy to the orchard last week, to get apples.  I bet you can guess what he liked the best.  (Hint--it's big and green and makes lots of noise.)  He dragged me out of the apple barn to take his picture here.

The kitchen is just full of apple goodness.  We bought Honey Crisps for eating, and the big Cortlands are for the applesauce I'm going to make this afternoon.  We got pears, too, and cider.

It's Halloween next week!  I'm sure these dudes want to wish you a Happy Halloween.  Oh, and to remind you to protect your hearing, and wear warm hats.  (They might want to remind me not to eat all the chocolate Halloween candy, too.)

Have a great week!
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:
Angela at SoScrappy
Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday
Cynthia at Oh Scrap (on Sunday)
Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Little By Little

Little by little, things get done, right?  Well, at least some things.  Many (many!) other things are waiting, but my second quilt for the Socorro Foundation is finished.  (Click HERE for information on the Socorro Foundation quilt/pillowcase drive.)

It's a very simple quilt.  I just took bright 2 in. strips out of the scrap bag, pressed them, cut them into 6.5 in logs, and sewed a 4-rail fence block.  Thirty blocks plus a 2 in. finished border makes a quilt 34 in. x 40 in., which meets the requirements.

Here's the back, another print I bought from my friend's friend.  You can see the grid quilting here, too.  The lines are 1.5 in. apart.  That should help it hold together in the wash.  I used this same fabric to back my first Socorro quilt.

See the Toucan?  That strip was cut from what was left of the animal fabric after making the first quilt.  Scraps just keep on giving.
So I got to use bright novelty prints, which I love, in that little quilt.
I got to use my black reproduction fabrics, which I also love, in these blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Quilt challenge.  The colors, as we're finishing up the year, are black and brown and gray.  I've already done my brown blocks.

Block 1 has a fancy print center that's been in the 4.5 in. squares box forever.

Block 2 has a humble gingham for its center.  Really more my style than fancy.
So now all my blocks for this quilt are done AND quilted!  I still have to cut sashing plus batting and backing for the sashing, before I can start putting it together.  And then I'll have to decide what to do about the border.

Where did all this fabric come from?  This is what got added to the stash this week.

Wednesday was guild meeting, and this month was our annual silent auction.  Each person can bring up to 3 bundles/boxes/piles of stuff, and we all have a chance to bid on them.  Highest bid at the end wins!  I won these gorgeous plaids, orange, green, and blue, each over a yard.  Woot!

I also won this collection of miscellaneous stuff.  I'm keeping the needles, pins, small scissors, and of course the feedsack scraps.  The interfacing and embroidery transfers will find a new home.
Even better than the stuff I won was getting rid of the stuff I brought!  I might have put some chocolate in the boxes I brought to spark some interest (this is always a good ploy).  The guild made over $400.

A friend found this tractor fabric at a sale, and thought of my Little Buddy, who is obsessed with tractors.  Now I'm thinking about making him a farm quilt.
Like I don't have anything else to make!  Well, we can't control when inspiration strikes, can we?

Have a wonderfully inspiring week ahead!
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches
Linking up with:
Angela at Soscrappy
Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday
Sarah at Can I Get a Whoop Whoop
Cynthia at Oh Scrap

For the Children

I love making things for kids, so this was a very good week.  It feels good to finish projects, even small ones, like the dinosaur pillowcase I finally made for my grandson, to go with his dinosaur quilt.

Isn't this cute fabric?  I was pointing out different kinds of dinosaurs in the print to my Little Buddy, but I got the T. Rex wrong.  "No, that's a raptor," he said, and showed me which one really was the T. Rex.  He should know, it's his very favorite dino. 

He also loves Daniel Tiger, so I made this pillowcase to put on when the dino one is in the wash.

At naptime on Monday, I got the finishing touches done on the baby sweater for my daughter's friend's new baby.  The knitting was all done,  I just had to sew on the buttons and the little applique.

I've had this duckie applique in my stash since my own kids were little!  It was a sew-on applique, not an iron-on, and somehow I just never got around to using it.
Click HERE for the sweater pattern.  It's knit from the top down, and is seamless.  I didn't follow the pattern exactly for the number of rows, etc., just used experience and common sense.  My way makes a size 3-6 months.
The baby shower is later today, so that was motivating me to wrap it up (yes, literally).

My last project is this little quilt.
I was inspired to make it by quilts I saw on the Sew Preeti Quilts blog.  (Click HERE for the specific post.)  Preeti made six quilts to send to the Socorro Foundation in Texas, which helps families released from federal agencies.  Her post was very moving.

The quilts will be used at the shelter and washed frequently, so they need to be sturdy.  There is a list of specific requirements and sizes HERE.

Isn't this animal print a hoot?  I had two fat quarters of it, and nearly used up every scrap.  I bought the fat quarters (at a highly discounted price!) from a friend of a friend who was destashing.

The small scraps for the nine patch blocks came from this bag.  It was stuffed full of 2 in. bright strips when I started cutting.  Since it's more efficient to cut several quilts at once, I cut pieces for two more quilts while I was at it.  Do you think there's enough for yet one more?  If not, no worries, there might be more fabric around here somewhere.

Thursday morning we took Little Buddy and went to Holy Hill Basilica and National Shrine, which is in a nearby town.  The church complex overlooks the surrounding woods and farmland, and it's a great place to see the changing colors of the leaves.

The sky was a little overcast, but the view was still amazing.  I took these photos from the tower, which you are allowed to climb in good weather.

Sights like these help me to remember to live my values every day.

Have a wonderful week, and thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:
Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Angela at So Scrappy
Alycia at Alycia Quilts 
Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Thanks to the Squirrels

Once we get to October in Wisconsin, we really can't deny that fall is here.  Sure, there are still green leaves on most of the trees, but we know it won't be that way at the end of the month when little costumed creatures come begging for treats.

I'm trying to stay more "in the moment", and enjoy fall without my usual dread of the coming winter.  This little "squirrel" is helping me--a fall table runner for the dining room.

I saw one like it on the internet (don't lots of quilts start out like that?), but there was no pattern.  So I made up my own, and added the borders on the ends to make it longer and to include a leaf print.  Just about any 8 in. block would do for this kind of runner.  I made 10 blocks and set them side to side.  Many of the pieces are 2.5 in. squares from those little packets you see at quilt shops.  Some, especially the cheddar ones, are from the scrap bag I bought at Quilt Expo last month.

The back was a larger scrap I've had for a while.  I had to piece it Frankenstein style to make it both long enough and wide enough.

We decorated for Halloween this week, with Little Buddy's help. There are plastic skeletons everywhere.

As long as I'm avoiding working on the big Wagon Trail quilt (see last post), I might as well make some spiky stars.  The Rainbow Scrap Challenge colors for October are brown and black.  Here are my brown ones.

Brown is a great color for 1800s reproduction quilts.  Antique quilts with lots of brown in them were generally made before 1900, when brown fell out of fashion.

I have lots of brown repro scraps in my stash, so I made sure to use two colors in each star instead of just one.

Gotta love stripes.

My windowsill garden is still blooming, except for the poor African violet I am trying to resurrect.  Do you see the blunt tips on the aloe plant?  One of my grandsons likes to snip off the tip and drink the juice.  The plant doesn't mind at all, and neither do I.

I hope you have a lovely week ahead, and if any squirrels come to call, tell them I said hi.

Linking up today with:
So scrappy
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Alycia Quilts
Oh Scrap