UFO sightings

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for visiting!

As I write this, it's a cold rainy morning outside, but nice and cozy inside.  I'm doing a little happy dance, because this UFO is finally a finished quilt.

Here's the block.  Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns lists it as #2165, The Twinkling Star, first published in Capper's Weekly, in a Nancy Cabot column.

As you can tell, the blocks are enormous!  They are 24 in. square, and there are only 6 of them in this twin sized quilt.

More than 30 years ago, I saw an antique quilt in this pattern in a friend's house.  When I asked her about it, she said it came from her husband's family and was made by someone she only knew as Mrs. Boyd.  Because I didn't yet know the name of the pattern, I've always called it "Mrs. Boyd's quilt". 

For years I wanted to make a quilt like it.  In 2009 I finally started work on it.  Yep, 15 years ago. My friend Debbie C. and I decided to each make one, but with larger pieces than the original.  I got the blocks done, but they languished awhile.  I could hardly believe how much fabric these giant blocks used!  Anyway, I finished the top, and hit the old "how do I quilt it" road block.  More languishing, sigh.

Fast forward to now.  I have been trying to straighten up my quilting stuff in the basement, even before we had a new furnace put in and everything got discombobulated.  Many of my older quilt tops are being donated for charity, but I have a special love for Mrs. Boyd and knew I'd never quilt her myself.  I asked my friend Joey to quilt her for me, and she did a beautiful job with her freehand Baptist Fan design.
 

Two weeks ago I got the finished quilt back from Joey, and I was over the moon about it.  In between family stuff and other obligations, I got the binding on this week.  I chose red, to set off the edge of the quilt, and because Debbie's version has lots of gorgeous red in it (and I'm jealous of how pretty it is!).

Finishing a quilt always gives me energy to tackle another one!  Good thing, too, because this happened at this month's quilt meeting.

Our quilt guild meets in a church.  Some of the church ladies asked us to finish some of their UFOs into quilts for charity.  I chose this one, a butterfly quilt.

These butterflies were huge, nearly 10 inches across.  They were probably cut in the late 1960s, early 1970s.  And they were poly cotton.  (As a self professed cotton snob, this was a bit off-putting.)  Also in the bag was about 3 yards of muslin (that was thankfully 100% cotton), and a handwritten design for a large quilt with alternate plain muslin blocks and a muslin ruffle.

I really like taking someone else's UFO and reworking it into a quilt.  It's a fun challenge.  First, I knew I would not be appliqueing these blocks.  Poly cotton is tough to applique, since it resists taking a crease, and it's not my favorite technique.  But I did want to honor the original quilter's intention.  

I'm going with pieced butterflies.  I did the purple ones first, for purple month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I'm cutting the large wings from the original butterflies, the background from the muslin, the black bodies from vintage scraps, and the rest from coordinating solids.

This pattern was a free one, which I call The Captain's Butterfly.  It was designed by "Captain" Richard Wightman of Treadleon.net, a website for people powered sewing machine users. I wrote about it in 2015, complete with a tutorial. (Click HERE).  It's an 8 in. finished block.  It does not seem to be on Treadleon any more.

The top two butterflies are made from the pieces in the bag.  The bottom one is made from vintage fabrics from my stash.  My plan is to use mostly the original pieces, and add in a few to make enough for a small/medium sized quilt.

 On to the projects that will hopefully NOT end up as UFOs, this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.

A week's worth of grocery receipts plus bits and pieces of purple makes these strips.   I've got an idea of what I might do with them, but we'll see.  They are fun to make.

New project!  These are fun to make, too.  I'm cutting hexagons and triangles from my reproduction scraps using the Accuquilt cutter.  Can you see the white star in the center?  When they go together in the quilt there will be lots of other colors, of course, and scrappy light "stars".

No set in seams makes these "blocks" easy and fun.  Now I have to go back and do green and red to catch up.

Speaking of fun, it was Spring Break this week for our little boys, so we took them to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum in Milwaukee.  The place was packed, but it was still a great day.  In the photo above they are driving a pretend truck.

I hope you are having a good week, whether working on old projects or new.  Happy Easter to all who celebrate!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

16 Patches, Purple, and Snow

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Spring snow fell yesterday, leaving 5 inches on the ground here.  It makes a pretty backdrop, but I'll be glad when it melts away.  This week's finish is a 16 patch, made from my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks from 2023.

Here it is, spread out on the snow.  Don't worry, I'll wash it today before it is ready to donate.

It's fun to revisit this purple block.  I wish I had more of that monster fabric in the top row!  I bought a fat quarter at a quilt show.  I definitely should have bought more.  Lesson learned!

The back is this multi-dot print.  I've used it a lot, just because it's so cheerful and goes with any color.

Snicky posed on the quilt when I first laid it down, then ran through the house with his tail in the air, for some reason known only to himself.

He ended up sleeping in this cozy nest of quilts in my sewing room closet.  It was a great place to be during the snow storm.

While Snicky was sleeping, I was sewing blocks for this years RSC.  I'm making 6 in. rail fence blocks, each with a light, medium, and dark strip.  

When the rail fence blocks were done, I started on the string blocks.  I just love making these!  Using up the strings makes me feel frugal, although I must admit I don't have enough "real" strings of every color, so I cut them from the big scraps.  This part of my RSC sewing makes a huge mess in the sewing room, but I don't even care.  

The trimmings even make the trash look pretty!  Confetti trash!

On Thursday my Little Guy and I went to the library.  He loves to play with the train set, even though he has a similar set at home.

He's really enjoying the Bad Kitty books by Nick Bruel.  We read this one on Thursday, Bad Kitty Does NOT like SNOW.  I think I agree with Bad Kitty.

How are your projects coming along?  I'm looking forward to seeing all the great quilts and blocks at the linky parties (links below).  Have a wonderful week!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

 

Bricks and Bananas

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Finally, this quilt is out of the problem pile and done!  I pieced it at least a month ago from bricks blocks I made as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge last year.  Then I layered it, basted it, and started quilting.  Turns out my basting was very very bad, causing tucks and other unspeakable faults.  So I pulled out the quilting I had done, took the quilt apart (sigh), and started over.  You gotta do what you gotta do.

Check out the border--it's bananas.  Literally, a print of bananas on blue that looks like denim.  I'm so happy I still have some of this fun fabric.
 

This is the 4th and last Bricks quilt, and at 48 in. x 54 in. it's the biggest one.  I'm hoping to donate it to Quilts Beyond Borders.  I think I followed all the rules, but I'll check with them to make sure.

It was fun making these blocks last year.  Especially since each one only has two seams!  I'm going to keep this pattern in mind to use again.  The free pattern is called Forest Bricks, and comes from Marysquilts.com, click HERE.

The back is this red plaid from the stash, and the binding is the same fabric I used for the dark blue in last week's Lightning Streak quilt. 

There are a few more projects in the problem pile, but at least one is now problem-free.

 The purple 3-D flying geese are done.  I'm realizing how small they are (finishing at 2 in. x 4 in.) and how many I'll need for finished quilts, so I'm making lots of them.  These are easy too, just one seam.

More cats!  I keep finding more cute fabric to make into pieced cats.  I am inspired by some stuffed cats my grandkids have, called Cats Vs. Pickles (Click HERE to go to their web page.)  These cute little cats are all different colors and are soft and snuggly.  Even the pickles are cute.

When I bought the fabric for the green cat above, I thought the print was shamrocks, which would be fun for St. Patrick's Day on Sunday.  (In my defense, I snagged it out of a sale bin at a crowded quilt show and didn't get a good look.  I needed green anyway.)  It's still a cute cat, and I'll add it in with January's other green kitties.

Our guild's block of the month is this Pineapple Block, seen here made up in my yellow scraps.  I wonder what a whole quilt of pineapples would look like?  Hmm, or maybe lots of other tropical blocks?

Here's Buddy, putting a real pineapple on his head because the Minions do (?)  Or just because he's being goofy.  We all love fresh pineapple, and it was on sale this week at the grocery, so why not.
 

These little guys have just discovered video games, oh dear.  Their dad and uncle play online, and they get to watch.  Here they're pretending to be heroic characters.  Buddy and Little Guy have also been playing Mario Cart on the weekends.  They can hardly wait for Friday.

We've had some warm days this week.  It's a joy to go to the park with my Little Guy.  He was pretending to be a super hero, and told me we needed to "vacuum the city".  It took me a minute to get it.  "Do you mean evacuate the city?"  He nodded.  We got all the pretend people out, and he learned a new word.

I hope you are all having fun, and NOT vacuuming cities, unless you want to of course.  I'm wishing you a Happy St. Patrick's Day on Sunday, and a wonderful week ahead.

Thanks for reading!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at SoScrappy

 

Lightning Streak, Purple Scraps, and Signs of Spring

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Lightning struck last week!  I saw a quilt in this design (with a free pattern!) at alyciaquilts.blogspot.com, and loved it.  I had to drop everything and make it.  (Turns out there's an acronym for that:  DrEAMi!)

It's called Lightning Streak.  Alycia has made several, all of them terrific.  The quilt was easy, fast, and fun to make, and used lots of my 5 in. squares plus a cute blue space print. (Click HERE for the link to the free pattern.) 

I chose the squares based on the colors of the rockets, spaceships, etc. in the dark blue print.  There were six main colors:  red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, and light blue.  I used six each of those colors, and added 4 multicolor prints to make 40 squares.  I have a lot of multicolor fabrics, and I'm trying to remember to use them wherever they'll fit in.

 I love designs that zigzag!  For quilting, I just followed the seams about an inch out.  (Alycia's quilts are much more beautifully quilted!)

The backing is a flannel print of lady bugs and flowers, and the binding is a strong red.  My quilt has 20 blocks that finish at 9 in. square, and the quilt itself measures 36 in. x 45 in.  It will be donated, not sure where yet.

Thanks so much to Alycia for sharing the pattern, and for hosting Finished or Not Finished Friday every week! 

In other news, purple!

Are you participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge?  March is purple month, which is great for me since I love purple.  These are my potato chip blocks, made from 2 x 3.5 in scraps (unfinished measurement).  The blocks themselves are 9 in. finished.  I'm always amazed at the variety of purple colors, everything from lavender to eggplant.

These stretched stars are so easy and fun, with just two seams.  The purple squares are 5 in. cut, and the white ones are 2.5 in. cut and sewn "flippy corners" style.

 Did you guess this one was my favorite?  I love weird stuff lol. Ghosts on a purple background, eating popcorn and drinking hot cocoa?  So much fun.

I have purples that are more "reddish" or "pinkish", and others that are more "blueish".  And then there's the ones that look blue next to other purples (like the two on the ends above) but look purple next to blues.  It won't matter when I'm putting them into scrap quilts.

Math is of course not fun for me (I complain about it all the time, sorry), but I was doing some this week thinking about how many of these blocks I'll need for even a small quilt, and it was appalling!  For a quilt 36 in. x 45 in. like Lightning Streak I would need 80 of these squares!  Guess I need to make more every month.  Thank goodness for calculators on cell phones.

It was a crazy week here, which is beginning to seem normal.  The furnace quit AGAIN, and this time it had to be replaced.  I spent some of my sewing time baking to keep the oven going to warm up the kitchen.  Thankfully it wasn't too cold here, just down to freezing at night, and 30s to 40s F in the daytime.  We had two space heaters, and I had my wool quilt, so we slept warm and cozy even without the heat.  They put the new furnace in over one long day, and now I'm thrilled every time the heat comes on.  I didn't full appreciate the conveniences of modern life like refrigeration and central heat until they stopped working.  Wonder what will go wrong next? (Oh, please not the plumbing!)

Little Guy was toasty warm under the family favorite flannel quilt, with Snicky curled up on his feet.  At 4 years old he hardly ever takes a nap, but he was worn out that day.  I couldn't resist taking a photo.  I know how fast little ones grow up.

There are some signs of spring here!

Tulips are coming up.  And something is nibbling on them.  Looking at you, naughty squirrels.

Do you see the pink thing in the middle of this ugly picture?  It's rhubarb, coming to life after the long winter.  It always looks so weird, but I'm very glad to see it.

Have a wonderful weekend, and a good week ahead, filled with what 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

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

 

 

UFO Alert, and Purple Rainbow Kitties

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

This week I finished a UFO, used up 16 orphan blocks, and did some fancier (for me) quilting--all in the same little quilt! (I promise it's not crooked, the angle is just weird here, sorry!)

This is the block.  I made a lot of these using bright colored batik scraps I got at a quilt show many years ago.  I didn't have the vast stash of brights then that I have now, so everything possible just got thrown in.  And then I bought some more!  

Here's the back, leftover from another quilt.  I bound it in solid orange, just for fun.

The pattern comes from this book, Scrap-Basket Beauties, by Kim Brackett.  There are so many great quilts in here!  Kim Brackett is a genius.

This is the pattern, and I'm sure you can tell I changed it a little.  There are two kind of blocks in the pattern, an A block and a B block.  I used only the B blocks for my little quilt.

When I first saw it, the design reminded me of a Double Wedding Ring, with way less work.  Which was perfect, because I wanted to make a quilt for a wedding.  I got all the blocks done, but the wedding never happened.  (No tragedy or anything, they're still together, just not married.)  I could still have given them the quilt, but by now I had hit the roadblock of How Am I Going to Quilt This.

I always knew I wanted some fancier quilting where the blocks come together, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it.  I don't do free motion quilting (yet?), I quilt with a walking foot.  A large quilt with all these spaces just seemed daunting.  I put it away, and the years just kept flying by.

Two years ago, I dragged out the blocks and remodeled the setting to a twin size.  These blocks, plus a couple more, were left over from the remodel, and got made into a small top.  This week I finally pulled up my big girl pants and quilted the little top.  It wasn't easy, but not too horrible either.  So is there hope for the bigger quilt?  Well, maybe.

In other news, purple cats!  Purple is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.  When I found out yesterday evening, I ran up to the sewing room and made these.  March will be a fun month.  Purple is my favorite color.

I had just finished making these green cats for January, so I'm caught up on Rainbow Kitties now.  BTW, the one in the lower left corner really is a light green, not aqua as I'm seeing on the computer monitor.

Last Tuesday was a wonderfully warm day (60 degrees F!).  Little Guy and I went to the playground and played in the backyard too.  And well, it did snow again on Wednesday, but only a little that has already melted off.  Maybe spring is coming early to Wisconsin?  I would love it, but I'm not going to count on it.

Guess who has a birthday!  It's Little Guy!  He'll be 4 years old this week.  We're going to his party today, so I better get a move on.  I've got presents to wrap and cupcakes to frost.  There may even be sprinkles.

Have a wonderful week, no matter what the weather is.

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

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