Sailing Away

Welcome to Treadlestitches, my little corner of the world.

This week, we went to the Lake Michigan shore with our oldest daughter and her children for an afternoon.  (Her husband is working from home, and no doubt appreciated the quiet time!)  The weather was perfect, the company was wonderful, and it was so good to actually go somewhere, even if only an hour away.

My daughter's family comes to the shore often, and a favorite activity is looking for beach glass.

We all got into the act, even Grandpa.  It's like a treasure hunt.

The kids (Middle Buddy and Girl Buddy?) swam a little, especially our grandson,  but the water is just too cold for most of us.  We got our feet wet, but that's about all. 

After we got home, a squirrel bit me, and I just had to drop everything and make this little sailboat quilt.

The unpieced blocks in the quilt are made from fabric leftover after the last quilt I finished.  I was cleaning up the scraps when the squirrel attacked.   There were sailboats in the dark blue print.  What if I made sailboat blocks to go with it?

Years ago, I made this tied comforter for my son.  I had come across it recently in the mending pile.  The blocks in the old quilt were 12 in. finished.  For the new quilt, I used the same traditional design, and just made the blocks 6 in. finished.

Want to see why the old quilt was in the mending pile?  The border fabric ripped in the washing machine.  I will have to replace this section.  Since it's a comforter, it will be easier to fix than if it was quilted.  The real problem will be finding the right color fabric.  When the virus is less of a problem, I'll take the quilt with me to the quilt store and just get the closest match I can.

Here's my patented method for choosing fabrics for boats and sails and backgrounds--just dump out the 2 in. strips on the floor and root through them!  Messy quilty fun.

Look what I found in my stash for the back--happy whales and crabs.  The border is a lighthouse print that I had completely forgotten about, and the binding has white anchors on red.  I quilted it with a serpentine stitch done with Mrs. Pfaff's built in walking foot.

This little quilt will go to Jack's Basket.

When I recovered from the squirrel bite, I made 6 more blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  This is my Text Me A Quilt project.  I neglected to make dark green blocks last month, because I just didn't have much of any dark green scraps.  I need more blocks, though, so I scrounged up whatever greens I had.

These are some "weird" greens that didn't fit any particular category, muddy green backgrounds with Minecraft and dog prints.

These are a little darker, with ants and the Peanuts characters playing golf.

It's really fun playing with all these prints.

Summer is here in full force, and everything is blooming, even the weeds and wildflowers.   I love this time of year.

In the week ahead, I'm wishing you joy in the little things, and courage to do what we can to help things get better.  Have a great week!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap