Pink Bowties, and Dolls

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

It's so much fun to see all the bloggers working on putting together their Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for this year.  I'm working on mine, too, and finished this little pink bowtie quilt this week.  Unfortunately it's a gray day today, so the photos are inside. 

 These pink blocks were the first ones I made this year for the RSC, way back in January.  I don't have a lot of pink scraps (not my favorite color), but there were some cute ones in the stash.  I made 20 blocks that finish at 8 in. square, and set them 4 x 5, with a 3 in. border.

The Valentine puppies are my favorite!

Also, the llamas!  I don't think I've ever seen llama print before.  This was part of a scrap bag given to me by a friend (hi, Joey!).

The backing is this print that looks like a pieced quilt (cheater fabric?).  I was thinking it would make good doll quilt fabric.

Dolls were on my mind, I guess.  When I was visiting my mom we saw this Halloween display in a neighbor's yard.  These evil little dolls were getting up to all kinds of bad behavior.  Including hauling away a body (!).

My dolls would never do that!

  Yes, I still have 3 dolls from my childhood.  

The biggest doll with the pink dress is Heidi.  My grandad sent her to me when he was stationed in Germany in the early 1960s.  We called her The German Doll until I finally named her, but she was actually made in America.  I think he must have bought her at the PX.  Looking at her makes me think of Grandad, so far away from home at Christmas.

The soft doll with the light hair is Sally Dolly.  She came with a crib that had a wind up music box that played Brahm's lullaby.  The crib fell apart eventually when my kids were playing with it.  Sally was always a doll to snuggle with.

The little doll is a boy.  When my baby brother was born, my mom brought two of these dolls home, one for me and one for my sister, so we could be mommies too.  My own kids discovered him, and named him Baby Paul.  His outfits either disappeared or disintegrated over the years.  My oldest daughter made his current outfit one day when they were visiting, and her daughter played with him too.

I don't know if anyone will want my dolls when I'm gone.  I just hope they don't end up on a murder rampage lol.

Most of October was unseasonably warm, but Fall has finally come to Wisconsin, and winter is not far behind.  The trees have been beautiful, as has the gorgeous blue sky, but we may get a light snowfall this weekend.  It's not surprising, it is November after all.

Have a wonderful week, everyone, whether rain or shine, heat or cold.  And good luck with the RSC projects!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these wonderful quilt bloggers:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

Back Home Again

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Did you have a good Halloween?  Very few kids live on our street anymore, so we only had a few trick or treaters.  Now we have lots of leftover candy, which may not be a good thing lol.

Just for fun, I went through my kid fabrics looking for Halloween prints, and this was all I found.  Most of these I've bought recently.  The blue one was in the fabulous pile given to me by my friend Joey.  I've had others, but used them up.

I am so lucky!  I got to spend last week with my wonderful Mom.  We talked and laughed, and even stayed up late one night.  Last Sunday we went to church, then out to my sister's house for a barbecue.

Of course I stopped by a quilt store while I was there.  This is getting to be the theme of my recent blog posts!  Normally I only visit quilt shops occasionally, but when I travel I like to see what shops in a new area are like.

The shop is Sew & Sews, Inc. in Oklahoma City.  It is a big shop, just full of lovely fabric.  The staff was welcoming and helpful, and prices were reasonable.

Want to see what I bought?  

Kid prints, light fabrics (I always need those), and a bright blue that might become sashing.

I'm happy with the loot, but it's time to stop shopping and get to treadling.  The bins are getting full!

I didn't do any quilting while I was at Mom's.  Since then I have unpacked, done a little laundry, and made a few string blocks.  These were a kit made up by our charity committee.  I'm enjoying the process, pulling the strips from a basket at my feet and sewing them to a cloth foundation with my trusty treadle.

While I was visiting, my Mom and sister and I went to the First Americans Museum.  It was amazing.  I highly recommend it.  We toured the gallery, learned about First Nations history, and saw artifacts made both long ago and recently.

These are toy cradle boards made by the women in a Kiowa family.  The colors and designs are so beautiful.

Look what happened while I was gone!  You might remember the Dead Plants Society from my Sept. 27 post.  Before I did all this traveling in October I got rid of the plants that were actually dead, and cleaned up the remaining three.  When I left there were buds on the Christmas (or Thanksgiving?) cactus, and now there are blooms!  I was overjoyed.   The geranium is going to bloom as well.  I promised all three of them to do a better job taking care of them.

I'll be staying close to home this week.  Visiting with family members at my cousin's funeral made good memories in spite of the sad circumstances. Spending time with my Mom and my sister's family was joyful.  I am glad to be back home again now, getting ready for the holidays.

I wish you joy this week in whatever makes you happy.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Sponge Bob Quilt, and a Little More Shopping

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Are you ready, kids?  I bet you can guess why I call this the Sponge Bob quilt!  This happy guy appears in 3 of the scrappy blocks and the border.

Most of the scraps, Sponge Bob and others, came from this pile given to me by the Amazing Colleen.

Some of the scraps were already cut into the right size for the middle of these Bricks blocks (3.5 in. x 6.5 in.).  It was easy to add the white pieces (cut 2 in. x 6.5 in.) to make 6 in. finished blocks.

I have made several donation quilts from this pattern.  This one measures 42 in. x 48 in. and will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

As usual, simple quilting finishes it off.

I used up almost all the Sponge Bob fabric with this strip on the back!  I love using scraps, and I really love using them up!  Don't worry, I have more lol.

On my way back from a family funeral, I stopped at Quilted Joy in Louisville, Kentucky.  It's a lovely shop, with very helpful staff.

Here's what I bought:  7 fat quarters, 3 fat eighths, and a jelly roll of rainbow striped strips.  I'm always looking for fun prints, especially in orange and purple, so I was glad to see the Halloween prints.  I have also been looking for rainbow print.  I have an idea I may use to put together some of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.

There was a big antique mall on the way home.  I was intrigued by the block in this antique quilt.

I loved this cute rail fence too.

Want to see something weird?  This is a rest area on I 65.  It looks more like a spaceship to me.  Or a modern Stonehenge?

The inside is also amazing.

I'm traveling again this week, going to visit my mom in Oklahoma.  I won't be quilting until I get back.  But there might be a little more shopping!

Have a good week, everyone, whatever you do.

Thanks for reading!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

No Blog Today, Sorry

 

It's been a tough week.  I've had to go out of town for the funeral of a wonderful young cousin who died of cancer.  He left behind a wife and three young children.

Treadlestitches will be back next week. 

What's New At the Aquarium, and Color Block Stars

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

A few weeks ago, Hubby and I took the two youngest grandsons to Discovery World in Milwaukee.  The kids loved the aquarium which is part of it.

This must have been in the back of my mind when I pulled out the blue batik printed with shells to use in another project, and remembered I had lots of "under the sea" prints, some already cut into 5 in. squares.  The other project was set aside so I could make this little quilt.

In my mind, it sort of looks like the big tanks at aquariums, with little windows to see the animals.

All sorts of aquatic creatures are here:  turtles, manatees, sting rays, seahorses and other assorted fish.

There are a few surprises as well.  Where did that rubber duck come from?

Hey, what's that kid doing in there?

The pattern is Falling Charms, from Missouri Star.  The quilting is meant to look like gentle ripples.

Dolphins swim around the border.  I bought this yardage from a vendor who sells second hand fabric.

Here's the back, big colorful dots.  I think of them as bubbles.

It has been tough to photograph, since there is not much contrast between the fabrics.  Everything is blue!  It definitely looks better in sun light.

I will be donating it to the GSAFE auction.  GSAFE advocates for safe and affirming K-12 schools for LGBTQ students.  Click HERE for more information.

In other news, I really need to assemble and quilt all those blocks I made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, but at least I finished the Color Block Stars.  I have a set of 9 going to Many Hands and Many Hearts and a set of 12 I will assemble into a quilt to donate locally.

These three are the last ones for Many Hands and Many Hearts.

And these are the ones I made with novelty prints.  The resulting quilt will go to a child.

Two yellows:

Two aquas, one bluish:

and one greenish:

One purple:

It was very hard to find 15 different novelty prints.  BTW, I counted stars and hearts as novelty.  The purple with strawberries is British made fabric I bought in Scotland.

I also made another green block, with mostly darker greens.

And another dark blue to finish out the set of 12.

These are fun to make, I promise!  If you'd like to make some for the block drive, click HERE for directions.

In other news, we went to Lake Geneva last weekend.  The weather was perfect, except maybe a little too hot for my husband.  He hiked around the lake in two stages, half on Saturday and half on Sunday.  I drove him to the drop off point both days.  I like walking, but definitely don't want to hike 10+ miles each day.  So I went shopping!

It was an easy drive from Lake Geneva to The Stitchery Quilt Shop in Delavan, WI.  It's not a huge shop, but is absolutely crammed with fabric.

Here's what I bought.  You might remember me complaining a little about the lack of purple and orange novelty prints.  I was excited to find these two batiks with spider web prints in the Bolt End bins.  All 5 of the prints in the front of the photo were in the bins, so were discounted.  Each was at least 9 in. wide, which I call an old fashioned quarter yard i.e. a skinny quarter.  The fabrics on bolts in the (small) sale room were no more than $9.99 per yard, with a one yard minimum cut.  I bought a yard of the alphabet fabric. The Dr. Seuss/Horton Hears A Who fabric was my favorite find from the sale room.  I bought all that was left, which was 2.5 yards.  Whee!  I love sale fabric!

After Hubby got back from the hike and took a nap we went on a cruise around the lake.  The old houses built by Chicago's robber barons back in the day were very interesting.  We sat on the upper deck of the ship and enjoyed the breeze and the beautiful views.  All in all, a lovely weekend.

Our young grandsons recently had a day off school for conferences.  I took them to the library, and after we found lots of fun Halloween books we went outside to the library patio to play.  I have bragged on my local library before, and you can expect me to keep doing it, because they are amazing!  They have two little play houses, a play car, toys, and this thing the boys were riding on (which they were really too big for imo).  We had a wonderful morning with books and outdoor play.

I hope you have a terrific day today, doing things you love to do.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap