Mom Jeans (and Other Recycling)

Big Buddy, my oldest grandson, hasn't had a new quilt in a long time.  Now don't get me wrong, I've made him lots of quilts in the past, but recently his little brothers have been getting new ones and he hasn't.  Time to fix that.  The top above is for him, and I'm calling it Mom Jeans.  Bonus--it's mostly blue, for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.

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The quilt top is made of denim, as requested by Big Buddy, and all the pieces are recycled from old jeans.  Some of them are from my jeans, and some are from Big Buddy's mother.  (Two moms!)  My daughter is much more fashion-conscious than I am, so her discarded jeans were less worn than mine.  (She's also much slimmer, so I got less fabric from her old jeans.)  I used light blue, dark blue, and black.

The pattern is called Denim Rails, and is from the book Scraps and Shirtails, by Bonnie Hunter.  I didn't even change anything, which is unusual for me, except I didn't use strip piecing for the 9 patches, but just cut squares instead.

Since my grandson is 15 now, and thinks of himself as quite grown up (oh dear) I have been consulting him as I went along.  We still have a few decisions to make.  How warm does he want this quilt to be?  How thick should it be?  Cotton batting or poly?  Does he want a flannel backing or regular cotton?  Will a fabric I already have do, or do we need to order something?  And all of these decisions will affect how it gets quilted.

So this is as far as I can go without a further consultation.

You know, as much fun as it is to make quilts from new fabric and scraps, there is something really satisfying about recycling old clothes into a useful item like a quilt.  Although quilts have always been made from both new fabric and scraps, the traditional way to think about quilting is as a salvage craft, like making something from nothing.

This strikes a cord with me.  I love recycling!

These jars used to be filled with pesto or lemon curd.  Now they hold black raspberry jam, which I made this week from our berry harvest.

This old cat litter container makes a great diaper pail, with a flip-top lid.

And I've shown you my clothespin bag in the past, made from a rice bag.

What kinds of things are you recycling?  Got any good hints?  I would love to know!

Little Buddy (with Grandpa's help) built this tower, using all the wooden blocks and Legos we had.  I convinced him to let me take a picture, but seconds afterward, he gleefully demolished it.  I'm not sure which was more fun for him, building it up or knocking it down.

I always have much more fun making something than I do taking it apart.  (Does that mean I have a "constructive" attitude?)  I hope you have fun this week, whatever life brings your way.

Thanks for reading!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Angela at So Scrappy

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Blue Prints

Welcome to Treadlestitches, a blend of old and new.  Here's what's new--dark blue shoofly blocks for one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts.

I'm using 3.5 in. strips from my "parts department" to make these blocks.  The center of this one is a random square leftover from something I don't even remember.  (Does this happen to you?)  I think it kind of looks like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors.  "Feed me, Seymour!" 

This time the center is baseball.  I apologize for the light level in the photos--I just couldn't get it right this morning.

This one was my test block, to see if I liked making these Shoofly blocks with the lights and darks in this position.  (Yep, I liked it.  It also uses more dark fabric than light, which is perfect for my scraps.)

And my favorite of this bunch.  The lighter triangles are leftovers from my tablerunner, and the center is from my Obama quilt.  The word Hope is prominent on this square.  Hope is what we need right now.

So that's the blocks made from new fabric.  I'm also working on "recycling" a partially finished quilt top (click HERE for more info--scroll down past the house blocks).  I got a little bit done on that this week.

These are the blue blocks.  I wasn't working on this project when the RSC started, so I'm catching up on light blue plus medium/dark blue.  As I rip the blocks out of their previous setting, I'm sewing them together with white squares to make Double Nine Patch blocks.

Some of these old prints are a hoot.  Blue cherries?  Tied with a gingham ribbon?

I think they may have made a reproduction of this print, or something similar.

This fabric is in several of the little blocks.  What do you think it's supposed to represent?  Is it a window (but not attached to a house)?  Or maybe a phone booth?  I think it looks a bit like the Tardis in Dr. Who.  And what about the background--is it a quilt pattern?  Whatever it's supposed to be, I think it's perfectly weird and I'm glad to have it.

This block is new.  I had to make a couple more, to replace some with really bad stains.  (How does a quilt block from an unfinished quilt get stained?  Was the fabric stained before she cut the pieces?)  Not weird, but it blends in.

Production has slowed to a crawl in my sewing room this week.  I usually sew for a half hour or thereabouts in the morning, but I wasn't able to do that every day, and having the kids full time is an adjustment I'm still making.  I just have to keep reminding myself that I don't have any deadlines, and things will get done "all in good time".

We have had some good times this week!

Our oldest daughter came by with her two kids.  I'm calling them Mr. H and Miss E.  Mr. H is camera shy, so getting pictures of him is a challenge.  Miss E and Little Buddy had lots of fun on Miss E's splash pad.

Check out this band of brothers!  Big Buddy turned 15 this week (I can't even believe it!).  Their mom got them to pose like this.  Little Buddy is goofy as always, and Baby Buddy is just happy to be here.

I'm happy to be here, too!  For the week ahead, I am wishing you hope and joy, wherever you find it.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Angela at Soscrappy

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Addendum:  The Obama Quilt

I thought I had blogged about this quilt before, but I must have finished it before I started blogging.  Anyway, here are some photos.

The center is a printed square portrait of President Obama I bought at a quilt show, not long after the election.  Doesn't he look young here?  The cornerstones are the fabric I used in the shoofly block.

Each star has a detail from the president's life or an accomplishment as president, written inelegantly in permanent ink by me.

In 2008, there were Obama prints in the local fabric shop (like the Yes We Can/Hope fabric in the cornerstones).  I used the one above for the top and bottom border.  It's kind of crudely printed, but I don't care, it's part of history.

Here's the back, a flag print.

This square celebrates the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  The bottom red fabric is a reproduction print named for Sally Hemmings, Thomas Jefferson's slave and the mother of five of his children.

The election of the first African American president is one of the most momentous historical events of my lifetime.  So of course I made a quilt about it!  By the way, we don't use this quilt.  I put it on the bed in the extra room sometimes, especially when we have an election.

Red, White, and Blue--And Pink!

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

I'm still celebrating Independence Day!  This is how far I've gotten on Bonnie Hunter's Fourth of July pattern, which I'm using for leaders and enders.  Only twelve blocks, but I can see how it's going to go together.  As an added plus, it uses dark blue, which is the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Here's a little novelty surprise--it's Uncle Sam!  I think this is the last scrap I have of this fabric.  Of course it had to find its way into this quilt.

So that's red, white, and blue.  What about pink?

This is my Kings Crown/Log Cabin quilt top, sewn together at last.  And of course there is a story.

These blocks take me back to the first time I went to the AQS quilt show in Paducah, Kentucky. To me, this was the ultimate quilt heaven, days of shows and vendors and quilt everything!  I think this was in the 1980s, and I went with a wonderful group of friends from Ohio.

When I walked into the vendor hall for the first time, I was absolutely dazzled.  At one of the first booths, there were antique quilts and fabrics and blocks, and I was blown away.  I was also blown away by the prices!  I was used to finding scruffy projects in junk stores, and here were beautiful quilts and tops being sold for what they were actually worth.

But there was a bin of scruffy stuff, and these blocks were in it.  They cost 50 cents each.  Of course I bought them.

When I got home and the dazzle wore off, I could see what a big problem these blocks would be to sew into a quilt.  "Crooked" does not even describe the distortions.

I had fun tracking down the pattern, though.  This is the King's Crown pattern from Ruby McKim in her book One Hundred and One Patchwork Patterns, first published in the 1930s.

It also appeared in the Ladies Art Company catalog, at least by 1929, shown here in the bottom row, second from left.

Neither one of these was exactly the same as my block.  It was smaller than either pattern, and the colors were reversed from the LAC pattern.  I was also mystified by the name.  It really didn't look like a crown.

The blocks were in my basement "collection" for years, more as reminders of that awesome trip to Paducah than as a start for a quilt.  Having time during the pandemic made me think about actually finishing them.  When in doubt, log cabin!  I pulled 1.5 in. strips in blues and white/cream, put them in baskets beside the treadle, and added strips (AFTER I squared up the blocks to 6.5 in.!)

Once I got the first four blocks done, I could see the crown!  The blue strips formed a cross in the center of the crown.  It reminds me of many old hymns about the Cross and Crown.

It is hard to tell how old these King's Crown blocks are.  Double pink prints were produced for at least a century, and unbleached muslin has been around forever.  There is machine stitching on most of the blocks, but that doesn't tell us much either.  I used my reproduction 1800s scraps to give it a late 1800s/early 1900s feel.

Biddy the cat helped me decide where to put the stars on the borders.  I added them at the top and bottom to make it rectangular rather than square.

I used some of my favorite blue fabrics in this quilt.  The lighter blue star above is made with Liberty of London fabric that I bought at their store in London on our first trip to England in 1996.

The dark blue strip with the gold flowers is also a Liberty print I bought that same day.  Both of these blues were on the clearance rack, and are not the usual florals one thinks of as Liberty print.  I'm using them sparingly, but I think some scraps might go into the Fourth of July quilt!

The outer border is the same fabric as the border on my little table runner from last week.  When finished, the quilt will measure 72 in. x 82 in.

The corners of the quilt are new blocks, made from my repro double pink.  I didn't quite have enough original blocks for this setting.

I will probably ask a phenomenal quilter friend to long arm it for me.  This one will be a keepsake quilt, with lots of good memories sewn in.

Speaking of good memories, we are making some every day.  Our daughter is back to working full time, so we are full time babysitters again.  Little Buddy wants to help us take care of Baby Buddy, but sometimes he really has his hands full!  (Don't worry, there was a spotter not in the picture!)

This week, I'm wishing good new memories for all of us.  Times are hard, I know, but there is always some good mixed with the bad.  Take care of yourself, and stay safe!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Angela at So Scrappy

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Happy Independence Day, America!

July 4th is a great holiday.  No stress, no presents to buy, warm weather, and based on some of the best parts of American history.  It's even a good reason to make a little table runner, using dark blue, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.

I've always wanted to use these fabrics, reproductions of prints popular during the Centennial.  I only had fat quarters, so it had to be something small, thus a table runner instead of a larger quilt.  The print above shows the liberty bell alternating with a liberty cap on a pole.  As a country, we remember the bell, but the cap, although a real thing back in the day, seems sort of odd now.

Isn't this eagle the best?  Majestic and fierce, with arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other.

The eagle fabric has this stripe, with words saying, "In God We Trust, 1776-1876" and "Welcome Centennial U. S. of A".

I only had a little of this Declaration of Independence fabric to put on the back so it's not centered, but it's very grand and patriotic.

This circle represents the colony of Connecticut.  One of my ancestors emigrated from England to Hartford, Connecticut in the 1630s.  The acorns and oak leaves represent the Charter Oak.

This is the binding fabric.  I didn't quite have enough, but I added another red to it so I could use it.  Peace and Unity.  What could be more perfect for the times we live in? 

If we really want peace and unity, we have to live up to our highest ideals.  Without justice, and I mean justice for ALL, there can be neither peace nor unity.

Oh dear, I seem to have stepped up on my soapbox.  I blame it on the significance of the day, and what we're living through now.

Returning to quilting, here is my leader and ender project for July.  It's appropriately called Fourth of July, and is a free Bonnie Hunter pattern.  Click HERE to go to the instructions.

I've gotten a few four patches done.  Many of them are made from Mackinac Island charm squares sent to me by Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, as a prize for making quilts for her annual Hands 2 Help Challenge (thanks, Sarah!).  I cut the charm squares into 4 squares each (2.5 in.) to use in the blocks.  Of course I added in my own plentiful scraps.

Only 3 finished blocks so far!  If you've read the pattern, you know that I am changing the square sizes from 6 in. finished to 4 in.  Then I'm combining four of the blocks together.  It will look very much the same as Bonnie's in the end. 

This was a good book to read this month:  Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, by Sarah Vowell.  The author reminds us of how quarrelsome and fractious Americans were then, not unlike today, unfortunately.  Her lively writing style gives us a clearer picture of one of America's early heroes, the charming young Frenchman who believed in American ideals and came to help us fight for them.

A portrait of Lafayette is hanging at the palace of Versailles, and I made sure to have my photo taken with it last summer.  Merci, Lafayette! 

One more thing.  This is the first red raspberry from our vines.  It's like the first raindrop of a summer shower.  More are coming, little by little, to make life even sweeter.

Have a wonderful safe weekend, and to all Americans Happy 4th of July!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Angela at So Scrappy