Shades of Purple

 

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  It's the last purple week of 2020 for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

So I dragged out all the purples, and boy was that fun.

Above is an antique quilt top from my collection, set with purple.  And that's why I bought it.  It's a little unusual to see purple as the sashes on a quilt older than the 1930s.  This one dates to about 1890 to 1920.

Here's a closeup of the sashing fabric.  Do you see where some of it is discolored?  It was common for purples to fade to brown or tan back in the day.  

Inspired by the old quilt, I'm thinking of putting my little Thrifty blocks together with this reproduction purple.  What do you think?

 I laid the new repro fabric (on the left) against the old quilt top.  They are very different shades of purple.

I noticed the same thing when cutting my scraps for my RSC blocks this week.  There are so many different kinds of purple!  Some are named for flowers and other plants, like lavender, lilac, violet and periwinkle.  Some are named for fruits and vegetables, like plum, grape or eggplant.  I love them ALL.

Why did I only buy a fat quarter of the bat print?  There is barely any left now.  (Please excuse the threads on the block, sorry.)

The purple 1930s house blocks are done, just in time for a new color later this week.

The roof of the house above comes from vintage dress fabric, and the background of purple flowers on white is cut from a feed sack.

The body of the house came from this Gingham Girl flour sack, made for a flour mill in Arkansas City, Kansas.  It was meant to hold 10 pounds of self-rising flour, but looks as though it was never put to use.

Polka dot house's roof came from a feed sack.

The only vintage fabric in the block above is the background of flowers on white.  It's like an old friend, I've been using it in so many quilts.

 My oldest daughter and her kids were here on Wednesday and Friday, which was fun for everyone, especially Little Buddy.

Grandpa is holding on to this wiggly guy.   Baby Buddy is wearing his swim suit.  Can you believe how cute clothes are now for babies?

This is as far as I got on the pennant baby quilt.  The top is done, the back is chosen and cut, and the frankenbatting has been hand sewn together.  I'm hoping to get it quilted today.

One of those silly kids hid this Peppa Pig under my pillow!  So she's going to stay with me, and help me in the sewing room.

 

I hope you have all the help you need for your sewing this week.  Take care of yourself, and stay safe.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

 

Linking up with:

Angela at So Scrappy

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It Starts With Scraps

 It started with the scraps.   Well, of course it did.

In last week's "episode", I wrote about sorting my tiny reproduction fabric scraps, so I could make these blocks.

Hurray!  All 56 of these little blocks are done, and made from 100% scraps.  I even looked up the block name in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.  The closest match is #1602, which is called Thrifty (quite appropriate) and was published in the Kansas City Star in 1939.  Quilts were made in this pattern long before then, of course.

Last Sunday night, while watching PBS, I dumped out all the repro scraps on the floor and sorted them by size and color.  Any scraps big enough to cut a 2 in. square from went in a stack.  The rest went into these baggies. 

 Any non-quilters reading this must think it's hilarious to keep scraps this small.  Heck, many quilters would think so, too!

But look what you can do with them!  This is a 6 in. crumb square.  Isn't it cute?  I absolutely love it, even though I don't yet have a plan for using it in a quilt.  It will come to me.  Right?

While sorting through scraps, I found some triangles, like the ones above, left over from the quilt below.

 This quilt was made from somebody else's UFO that I bought at a quilt show.  (Click HERE for that story.)  This quilt went on to be donated through my quilt guild.  Looking at it now I'm reminded of the fall out shelter signs from my childhood.  (Ack!)

So that brings us around to this--a brand new quilt I started this week, just because I had some leftover cut pieces.  To me, these triangles look like strings of pennants hung up for an outdoor party.  The rows of pennants are not all sewn together yet.  I'm planning to add the light border, and then an outside border of squares.  I haven't made a baby quilt for a while.  It has been good to work on getting some of my other projects done, but I miss making these bright quilts for charity.

 

Did you see the purple triangles?  That's about all I managed for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this week.  This was a full week of babysitting the boys.  

Big Buddy starts his first job today, at a supermarket.  I don't really "babysit" him anymore, I just feed him and nag him about cleaning up his messes, and he introduces me to his favorite anime shows on Netflix.

Everybody was well this week, thank goodness, even Bella the dog, who got her shots at the vet.   I had to wait for her in the car due to the virus, which was weird but worked out okay.

These guys kept me hopping all week!  Baby Buddy is trying to learn to crawl.  I am watching with awe and horror, knowing how crazy everything will be when he is more mobile.

We try to take a walk in the park every day.  (This week we managed 4 out of 5 days!)  Every time we go, Little Buddy wants to have his picture taken sitting on this bench.

He will be starting preschool again this coming Thursday, and it's in-person.  I am trying not to burden him or his big brother with my worries about their safety.  I'll be making each of them a stack of masks this weekend.

Here's what Baby Buddy thinks about walks in the park--a good chance for a nap!

 

I don't know if I'll take a nap today, but I am definitely going to get some sewing done.  My sewing room is my happy place.

Have a good week, and stay safe!

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 

 

Purple Patches, Old and New

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for dropping by!

The demolition phase of remodeling this vintage quilt top is almost done.  Only 9 more blocks to go!  

Here's what it looked like when I bought it at a flea market.  The maker must have run out of the sashing fabric, and just given up.

I'm rescuing the blocks, and making Double Nine Patches with them.  This month, it's purple for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.  These old fabrics are lots of fun.  Check out the one in the center of the lower right block, the one with the black background.  Not your usual sweet 1930s print!

Most of the fabrics in this project date to the 1930s and 1940s, but a few (like our friend on the left) are from the 1960s.  How can I tell?  The solid purple fabric in that block is a poly cotton, which didn't come into widespread use until the 1960s.  I am not a fan of poly cotton in my quilts.  It doesn't wear the same as 100% cotton, over time it "pills", and it doesn't shrink the way cotton does.  So this little 9 patch is sitting out.  I replaced it with the 9 patch in the center of this block, which I made with a feed sack print. 

On to the new stuff--more purple!

Isn't it amazing how one quilt just leads to another? 

 

 About a month ago I finished the quilt top above that used 1.5 in. strips of blue and neutral.  (Click HERE to see that post.)  There were scraps left over, of course.  Instead of just putting them away, I started making 4 patches, and then adding in other reproduction fabrics and colors, and before you know it, a new quilt was started.

Here's how much is done now.  I'm using these little 6 in. blocks for leaders and enders, except when I can't help myself and just have to make a few more.  They're as addictive as potato chips, but with way less calories.  I'm using clothespins to hold groups of ten blocks together.  This is my handy hint of the week.  You can see at a glance how many blocks you have finished, plus no more getting stuck by pins.  (Why didn't I ever think of this before?)

 Pretty quickly, I ran out of neutral 1.5 in. strips.  Cutting from yardage seemed like a hassle for such small pieces, and it would mean less variety.  Plus I was pretty sure there were some scraps around here somewhere.

What about these Accuquilt apple core pieces?  They were leftover from a quilt I made years ago.  I'm not planning to make another one, so let's cut them up!

If I cut carefully, I can get 8 squares from each apple core.

Oh, and yeah, I forgot I had this little box of small neutral scraps.

And if there's a small box of neutral scraps, there must be...

a larger box of repro print scraps.  Plus a basket of them.  Or maybe two. 

So now I'm sorting these scraps into colors.  Some of them I'll use for the new little blocks.  But I won't need all of these scraps for that project. What if I made some crumb blocks?  Oops! One thing leads to another again.

I once read a mystery novel, where one of the characters was a quilter.  Over many years, she made quilts from her scrap box.  At the end, the box was empty.  That's how I could tell the author was not a quilter.  Scrap boxes don't get empty!  Seriously?

No photos of the grandsons this week.  Baby Buddy was sick (nothing serious) and needed to be held almost all the time.  Hubby and I tag teamed with the other two kids.  By the end of the week, Baby Buddy was his happy self again.

There is such beauty all around us at this time of year.  I took this photo of wild flowers at the edge of the parking lot at Outpost Natural Foods in Mequon.  Mostly yellow and green, but there is a little purple!

Even in these hard times, there is so much to be grateful for--sunshine, gardens, baby smiles, children's laughter, and, of course, quilts.   I am very grateful to everyone who reads this blog!  Thank you, and have a good week.

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict 

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Finishing, and Starting

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's no secret, I love the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Last year, I went overboard making zigzag blocks, and ended up making two Zigzag quilt tops.  I quilted the first one months ago.  This week, I had some time off from babysitting, so I got the second one finished.

 Woo hoo!  These were such fun to make.  (Click HERE for more on this project.)

Of course I started the quilting with the purple row!  Purple is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for August.  Plus it was in the center of the quilt, after all.

The back is a paw print, with hearts thrown in here and there.  The binding is pink, for somebody special.

When I first started making zigzag blocks, I hadn't decided what I was going to do with the quilts when they were finished.  I donate a lot of quilts to charity, and I thought I might do that with these.  But then I started making the denim quilt for my oldest grandson (click HERE for that), and that helped me decide.  This is the year ALL the grand kids get new quilts.

The zigzag quilt on the right will go to Mr. H.  In this one, the rows are in RGBiv color order, with no pink, and it's bound in all different colors.  The new zigzag quilt on the left will go to his sister, Miss E.  She loves pink.  Both of them have birthdays coming up, but I don't think I can wait for that!

These quilts are not big enough for their beds (kids have huge beds now!) but they can use them to cover up when watching TV, or take them camping or on sleepovers.

For this year's RSC, I got my 3 Shoofly blocks done.  All these blocks for this project are made of 1800s reproduction fabrics.

I missed the kids this week--they were up north with their other grandparents.  But it was good to get a few things done.  I spent some of my time canning bread and butter pickles and more pickle relish.  The house smelled like a pickle factory, but it's done now for the year.

Hubby and I went to a state park along Lake Michigan yesterday morning.  It was a beautiful day.

It's a popular park.  See all the footprints in the sand?  We kept a careful distance from other people, and went home when it started to get crowded.

We walked a mile down the beach, and then back across the dunes on the boardwalk.  Growing all over the dunes were these purple flowers.  Standing here you could hear the droning of the bees as they gathered nectar.  It was a welcome sound.  Bees have had a hard time lately.  These seemed very healthy (and happy?).

I wished my Mom was there with us, and not just because she would know the name of this plant.

It was good to get out into the wider world for a few hours.  There's a reason they call it "recreation".

Meanwhile, back at the "ranch", purple inspiration is everywhere.  Even in our shirts on the clothesline!

This week, I'm wishing you inspiration and excitement, and some rest and recreation, too.  Have a good week, and thanks for reading!

Cheers,

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