16 Patch and Sorting the Scraps

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Not much sewing got done here last week, just my 16 patch blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in light blue.  Lots of pirate squares in here, plus bugs and chickens and Clifford the Big Red Dog, etc.  

I like sharing these blocks with quilters.  You get how much fun it is sewing little pieces together.  People who don't quilt (like my great-grandfather) are often mystified trying to understand why we buy fabric, cut it up, and sew it back together.

Maybe I'd get more time to sew if I wasn't spending so much time buying fabric!  The last few weeks have been amazing, and the Endless Stash is even more endless, if that could be possible.

The best Stash Enhancing eXperience of every year is the annual rummage sale at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts, held just over a week ago.  This is a MAJOR event, and I am so thankful for all the people who donate fabric and other items, and for the volunteers who organize, price, and staff the sale.  This year, the museum made over $17,000.00!

For all us shoppers, it does not disappoint!  Pictured here is the regular cotton yardage I bought, after it was washed and folded.  There are fat quarters, half yards, one yard pieces, and quite a few pieces with multiple yards.  All the sizes are approximate, of course, since these were donated fabrics and not cut to measure.

Next are the flannels!  When the prices are this amazing and the prints are so cute, my resistance is easily overcome.  There are giraffe prints, and monkeys and cats and trucks and ABCs and everything!

My first love is scraps, of course!  And I brought home all of these from the sale.  I already had a stack of scraps from the yard sale a couple of weeks ago, so these got added to the pile.

Then last Wednesday night on the way to quilt group, my friend Nancy Queen of Scraps gave me a big bag of mostly novelty print scraps for kid quilts.  Plus another friend brought two big bins of yardage and scraps to the guild meeting from a quilter relocating, and I snagged some of that too.

So now what?  The yardage was easy to put away, although some bins are suffering from overcrowding. But in order to use the scraps, I have to sort them.  This is my system, for what it's worth.

I divide my scraps into Big Scraps and Cutting Scraps.  Big Scraps are cut as needed for a project.  Cutting scraps are trimmed and stored.

This is the resulting pile of Big Scraps.  I call them Big Scraps if they're at least 6 in. wide but less than a fat quarter.  They're rubber banded together by color and stored in a bushel basket.  This works well  any time I need a specific color, or for the RSC.  When a color is called, I can pull out a bundle and start cutting.

An ironing board can be a good place to sort scraps.  As long as Snicklefritz the cat is elsewhere!

The coast is clear, he's sleeping in the dog bed.
 

Here's the Big Scrap basket after the sorting was done. Wonder how many quilts I can make with this?

So now it's down to the Cutting Scraps.  Some of the pieces will just be trimmed into squares or strips and stored until the right project comes along. As I'm trimming, I'll also cut these scraps into pieces I need for current projects and to make kits for myself. 

Like this one!  The small squares in the box will make 9 patch blocks in green or aqua/blue (right in line with the RSC!).  The striped fabric came from the museum sale and will be alternate blocks. For borders, I'm thinking a narrow blue inner border with a wider green outer border, but I could change my mind once the blocks are made, so I haven't cut them yet.

Meanwhile, back at summertime...

We spent a lovely day at a local lake.  Buddy is holding up a rock he found, and Little Guy has his sand toy.  That's Grandpa in the background.

These guys really know how to pose!  They were on a hiking trail near the swimming area.

Our little strawberry patch is making us all very happy lately.  Summer is such a tasty time of year!

Have a great week, and thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

 

 

 

 

ABCs and Summer Fun

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Even though school is out here for the summer, we still need to remember our ABCs!  This week I finished a little panel quilt as a donation to Quilts for Kids.  (Shown here with my black raspberry vines.  Can't wait for next month's harvest!)

I bought the panel at my local quilt shop.  It caught my eye because it was really colorful and cute.  The squares are printed, but I outline quilted them as though they were pieced.

The center of the quilt, including the solid red inner border, was the original panel.  I added a strip of light blue alphabet blocks print on each side to make it wider, and then added the red print border.

I stuck with the theme on the back, using an older print I've had in the Endless Stash for a while.  I bought it second hand, I think it was originally printed in the 1980s or 1990s.
 

By the time I got to the border, I ran out of ABC prints, so this turtle and butterfly/dragonfly one had to do.  The light blue binding is probably from the 1980s.  Hey, light blue for June's color in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  And another scrap used up.

Speaking of the RSC, this week's blocks are the Uneven Nine Patch blocks AKA Puss in the Corner.

I'm making half of them with dark centers and half with light.  They'll be alternated in the eventual quilts, but will be mixed up with all the other colors.

More cute fabrics keep turning up!  It's hard to stop making the blocks.

We're spending so much more time outside now that it's summer!  The little boys have lots of energy to run off.

Buddy posed for this picture.  He loves zooming past on the scooter.

Remember this rainbow xylophone square on the panel quilt?

Here it is in real life--with Little Guy playing the notes.  It's on the playground at the neighborhood elementary school.

Last week when we left the library, Buddy was telling me how much he loves going there, and I had a hard time not crying tears of joy.  Our library is terrific!  There are books on whatever you're currently obsessed with, from Thomas the Tank Engine (Little Guy) to Tornadoes and Turkey hunting (Buddy), and just fun stuff like Here Comes the Big Mean Dust Bunny! Plus a great summer reading program every year, and kind friendly people to assist us.  Support Your Local Library!

Have a great week ahead, everybody!  I hope it includes time for all the things you love to do.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

 

 

 

 

Amanda Gone Wild

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

 It's full-on summer here in Wisconsin, and we are loving it.  School is out for the kids, the gardens are growing, and we spend lots of time outside.

In the evening when the kids have gone home, you'll find me up in the sewing room with the windows open.  Yesterday I finished a little quilt.  The pattern is from Me and My Sister designs, and is named Amanda.  The Amanda in the pattern looks like this:

It's neat, colorful and attractive.

Here's my version.  I'm afraid mine looks like an explosion in a confetti factory.

I didn't use any light fabrics.  My only rule was "no two pieces of the exact same print in a block".  The centers are all different, mostly novelty fabrics. All of the rectangles came from the 1.5 in. scraps.

The back doesn't do anything to calm it down.
 

The quilting is just a simple 2.5 in. grid over the blocks, plus two lines in the borders.

The border fabric is a little calmer, just little animals and balloons on a light blue.

Looking at it now, I'm rethinking some of my color choices.  Amanda has kind of gone wild!  Then I remembered why I started making bright quilts.  It was all because of kids in need and a program called Quilts for Kids. 

Just about every quilter knows about Quilts for Kids.  This organization fueled by volunteers delivers donated quilts to kids in hospitals.  Anyone who has ever been to a hospital knows how cold and colorless they can be.  I've been donating quilts to Quilts for Kids for more than 10 years.  I might have gone overboard on Amanda, but I'm sure she'll find a loving home. 

Light blue scraps are coming together into these big bricks blocks, one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.

Fun in the sun, and Thomas the Tank Engine's friends.

Blimey!  Here there be pirate fabric!
 

I felt like a pirate yesterday, when I brought home this loot from a garage sale!  Yards and yards of bright fabric, plus fabric markers and dish cloth yarn.  Arr!

I'm not much for flower gardening, but these roses just keep going no matter how I goof up!

Have a lovely week!  I hope you have time for the things you love to do!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Angela at So Scrappy, home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge
 

Am I Blue?

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Am I blue?  No, I'm happy, cause I'm making light blue Happy Blocks!

We're digging into our blue scraps again for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and this time I'm working on using up the light and medium blues.  I always have more blues than any other color, so there are no shortage of squares and strips!

My personal favorite block--this one, of course!  

Coincidentally, these little quilts also have light blue in them!  They were pieced by two nice ladies in my quilt group for a project we called March to May for Mothers Day.  We donated 31 finished quilts to Project Linus after our May meeting.  (There are only around 45 members in the guild!)  Several more tops were donated, and I volunteered to quilt two of them.  I knew I had backing and binding in the Endless Stash that would work.  

As you can see, the quilting I did is very simple, just serpentine stitch on the diagonal making an X in each square.  The batting is more of the soft poly from those gigantic rolls, split in half.  Aren't these fun prints?  Lots of classic florals.

Backing and binding are classic prints too.

This guy thinks he should pose whenever I lay a quilt down.  (I really just snapped this photo to distract him from playing with the computer cord.)

The second quilt is this sweet flannel one, in soft baby colors.

Adorable sheep print!

Of course I had lots of flannel to back and bind it!  And again the quilting is very simple, just serpentine stitch on the seams.

More to be happy about and to celebrate this week!  Our eldest grandson formally graduates from high school tomorrow.  It's hard to believe that little baby boy is nearly 18 years old.  We are so proud of him.

Check out the sign at Buddy's elementary school:  Parents-- Tag, you're it!  Yesterday was his last day.  He was not joyful about it, though.  He has loved his class this year, and doesn't want to go on to the next grade.  I think he'll change his mind when school starts again.

My little guys posed behind the sign.  Little Guy was also sad about his "school" ending.  He has been going to speech class twice a week, and now he won't see Miss Jenny til fall.  God bless all the wonderful caring teachers (including my eldest daughter!).

Can you believe the size of the strawberry Little Guy is holding up?  It's real!  I bought a pound of strawberries in the grocery store, and there were only 8 berries in the package--all of them were huge! They were shipped here from California.  Sadly, these were not very flavorful.  For now, they're okay, but I'm looking forward to local berries later this month.  Some will be very local, from our own little patch.

I hope you find many things to be happy about this week.  Including quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap