Saturday, August 8, 2026

Criss Cross Stars and Yellow Blocks

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!


In spite of getting distracted by my Kid Stuff quilt, I did finally finish the Criss Cross Stars top!  Must be because we stayed home all week.  I had to hang it sideways on the clothesline so it wouldn't drag on the ground.


Criss Cross Stars is a pattern by Lori Holt.  I started watching her YouTube videos last winter/spring and really loved them.  (Click HERE for Criss Cross Stars.)  Ms. Holt uses fabric she designs herself, but of course I used my bright kid-friendly prints.  For the centers, I chose either multicolored prints or multicolors on black.  This one is a Laurel Burch print of horses.


This is one of the black ones.  My backgrounds are scrappy.  With as much fabric as I have, I wasn't going to buy any more just to have enough for all the squares to be the same! (I probably will at some point, of course lol.)  The star points are made from 2.5 in. squares from my parts department.


I love this center square!  I bought a small scrap bundle at a quilt shop in Edinburgh last September and a tiny bit of this fabric was in it.  Happy, colorful elephants!  What's not to love?

 

Here's the border.   It looks blue in the photos, but it's actually a bluish purple.



The quilt measures 52 in. x 70 in., and will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center to be quilted and given to a child in foster care.


It's yellow month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  I love yellow.  It adds so much spark to a quilt, and goes with almost anything.  First up are my Greek Cross blocks.


I have all sorts of yellow scraps.  Some a bright as day, like the ones in this block.


Others are quieter.  Don't wake the sleepy little bear!


I didn't get any yellow blocks done for the first yellow Saturday, so I'm doing double time this week to catch up with these Whirligig blocks.  They are probably the quickest to cut and sew of any of my RSC blocks.


This soft print has characters from the Little Golden books.  I remember my Mom reading them to my brother and sister and me, especially the Poky Little Puppy and the Saggy Baggy Elephant.

In Progress


Now that I'm all caught up I can get to work on a UFO.  Back in 2024 I made STACKS of cat blocks.  After finishing several small quilts, I still had 21 blocks left over.  This project will use up 20 of those blocks in a small quilt, which I will quilt and donate to the GSAFE auction at the end of October.  I'm adding frames to bring them up to 9 in. finished.  All the frames were cut yesterday, so I'm ready to go.


For leaders and enders I'm sewing 2.5 in. squares into "twosies" and will then sew the twosies into four patches.  I need 96 four patches so it will be a while before they're done.  This basket had over 200 squares in it when I started.  Looks like I need to load it up again from the parts department.


No pictures of the grandkids this week.  Their dad was off work so they went fishing, etc., and I didn't babysit much.  (Could that be another reason I got some things done?)


Both boys would like to recommend this book that we borrowed from the library.  It is tough to find anything a 6 year old and a 10 year agree on, so I thought I'd pass it on.  Steve (the rubber ducky) and his friend Hank (a plastic dinosaur) are hiding in the puzzles on the pages.  Hank is VERY easy to find.  Steve just gets harder and harder to spot as the book goes along.  More of a puzzle book than a reading book, but challenging (even for adults!) and fun.

No blog next week!  I will be out of town, but I'm NOT going to another funeral (thank goodness!), just a big family reunion.  I may even visit a quilt shop.

Have a great week!  Or two!  Happy quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these kind ladies:


Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Cynthia at Oh Scrap















Saturday, August 1, 2026

Kid Stuff and Bright Blocks on a Rainy Morning

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

This quilt was supposed to be the leaders and enders project while I worked on Criss Cross Stars.  It just took over.  Does this ever happen to you?  (If it looks like I shaded the blocks from dark to light it's just because it's a dark day and the light in this room is uneven.)


The pattern is simple.  It comes from the book Scrap Basket Surprises by Kim Brackett.  She calls it "Feedsacks" because she used 1930s reproduction fabrics to make hers.  I call my version Kid Stuff because so many of the fabrics are kid-friendly prints.


It might have a random look, but I can't do random (and I have tried!).  Each block has 8 long rectangles around a jelly bean print square.  I used 8 colors, one for each long rectangle (red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, light blue, dark blue, and purple).  There are also 4 short rectangles.  I chose them after I laid out the rest of the block.


The border is this triangles print.  It looks a little wild on its own, but calm next to the blocks!

Kid Stuff finishes at 54 in. x 68 in., and will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center to be quilted and given to a child in foster care.


My blocks for Many Hands Many Hearts are done, and will go in the mail this week.  Above are the red/green ones...


then the orange and blue ones (love this combination!)...


and lastly the purple and yellow ones.  I definitely need more (and better!) yellows.  I'll dig around in the scraps and see what I can find this month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.


Speaking of purple, I guessed wrong on August's RSC color and made these crumb blocks as leaders and enders while setting the Kid Stuff top together.  Oops!  Never mind, I'll just save them for September and get started on yellow ones.


We are having an amazing summer!  We spent two days at a campground in central Wisconsin, and I just finally got all the laundry done!  Some of my favorite guys rode around on this golf cart.


Our two teenaged grand kids (Mr. H and Miss E) had fun on this crazy see saw at the playground.


When we got back home, Little Guy posed for me on the slide in the park near our house.  This summer will soon be over!  But we will try to make every minute count until then. 

I hope you're enjoying the season, whatever it is.  Happy Quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:


Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge