Back From Vacation, and Color Block Stars

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

We're back from our vacation in Edinburgh, Scotland.  It was a wonderful trip, but it is so good to be home.

Just walking down the streets of this modern but 900 year old town was amazing.  We took in lots of sights, including Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace.  In addition to all the historic wonders there were many textile things for a quilter to enjoy.

As is usual with us, we went to several museums.  In the National Museum of Scotland I saw a display about the color Turkey Red, which was often used in quilts of the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Above is a laboratory book recording experiments creating Turkey Red prints, from the United Turkey Red Co. Ltd., Dunbartonshire, Scotland, 1928-29.

 

They also had a Jacquard loom.  The pattern of the cloth woven on the loom was controlled by the punched cards, which are hanging in the background of the photo.  The weaving was done by hand (no electricity yet!).

Check out this sign!  It's a carved wooden likeness of a hand cranked sewing machine.  The shop it advertised sold hand made craft items.

Inspiration was everywhere, in tiled floors and brick houses as well as museum exhibits.

Plus there was an actual quilt shop!  There may have been another one too, but this was the only one I had time to go to.  It's called My Bearpaw.  It's a very small shop, with very kind and helpful ladies.

This is the fabric I bought and crammed into my already-stuffed suitcase.  Some of it is British made.  I bought a few fat quarters, a few fat eighths, and three scrap bundles.  I can hardly wait to start sewing with it!

I didn't take any quilt sewing with me, but I did knit these two hats to donate.  I'm trying to use up some of the yarn stash to make warm items for kids.  Winter is coming! 

After I got home, I made this Color Block Star for the current Many Hands and Many Hearts block drive, which will run through the end of November.  (Click HERE for details and directions.)  Because these quilts may go to anyone, I tried to choose squares that were calm prints, like florals and geometrics.  I made it in blue because we're finishing up blues for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

But I liked it so much I just had to make one with all novelty prints!  And I loved that so much I'm going to make a whole quilt from these!  I will make one block for the block drive and one for me in each color.

I did light blue next.  Calm first, then ...

novelty explosion!  This is so much fun!

Look who I found in the basement stash!  Little Lizzy must think I put those fat quarters there just for her.  Both cats were well looked after by family while we were gone, but have been keeping very close to us since we came back.  Guess they missed us!  We missed them, too.

I didn't always have internet while we were gone, so I have lots of quilt blog reading to catch up on.  Seems like a good way to spend the rest of this rainy day, while recovering from jet lag.

Have a wonderful week, everyone.  And happy quilting!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap