Treadlestitches: At the Crossroads, Potato Chips, and Ladders

Welcome to Treadlestitches! Thanks for stopping by!

Here's the Arkansas Crossroads top on the clothesline this afternoon, shortly after I got the borders on. I had to turn it sideways to keep it off the ground. That light fabric with blue dots really stands out, doesn't it? Maybe not the best choice. I do like it better up close though.

I had to put Snicky in the basement to keep him from pouncing on the quilt top. He was kind of a wild kitty today.

I had so much fun choosing squares for this quilt! Nearly all of them came from my 2.5 in. squares box in my Parts Department. Some were given to me, some came from scrap bags on the Free Table at guild meetings, some came from my own scraps, and some came from scraps I actually bought. Check out R2D2, pumpkins, an apple pie, a kitten's face, etc.

This one has dogs, cats, Sally from Peanuts, Scooby-Doo, buttons, and more.

This is the border. It yardage was one of my "winnings" at the quilt guild silent auction last month. Can you see the date in the selvedge? Where were you in 2002 lol? It really doesn't seem like 24 years ago. It's like I always say, if good quality fabric is stored well it will be useful for decades.

Oh, dear! Dealing with small squares and novelty prints means one always ends up with headless dinosaurs.

Now for the statistics! There are 576 2.5 in. squares used in the blocks, both in the four patches and the triangle corners on the light squares. I did not cut ANY squares specifically for this quilt. I used what was already cut. When I worked on other projects and had leftover 2.5 in. squares, I tossed them into the basket next to the sewing machine and added them in. There are also 96 light squares, the ones with the big blue dots, cut 4.5 in. square.

This is the box of 2.5 in. squares now. The squares on the left are all the colored prints. The ones on the right are the light ones, not used for this project, sorted by how many I have of each. There are also solid colored squares, and a few hsts. Over 500 squares gone doesn't seem to have emptied the box much, does it?

I changed my quilt slightly from the pattern I found in the book Quilts from the Heart, by Karin Renaud. She used 2 in. cut squares instead of the 2.5 I used, which makes mine larger than the one in the book. I also only used one border, but cut it 5 in. wide. In the end, mine top measures approximately 57 in. x 73 in.

It will be donated locally to a child in need.

Oops, I did it AGAIN! The potato chip blocks were supposed to be my leaders and enders for the next couple of quilts, but I just couldn't stop making them. Now I have a batch of 30. This project used 30 3.5 in. squares for the centers and a whopping 480 skinny brick pieces (skinny bricks is my name for the 2 in. x 3.5 in. rectangles by the way) for the rest of the block. I did have to cut a few skinny bricks to have enough of a few colors (red, green, and yellow) and some lights, but the rest came from the box. So now what do I do about leaders and enders?

This is what! There are still lots of skinny bricks in the box! I'm making what I call Ladders blocks, which use 4 of the rectangles sewn together like this, plus two matching strips cut 2 in. wide on each side. These will be 6 in. finished blocks. I will probably use a solid fabric for the side strips, but I'll decide on the color after I get a few more made. It's a quilt I've made a couple of times before. If I can keep myself from setting aside the main project to make the ladder blocks (!), I can use them as I tackle more of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge block sets in the Some Assembly Required box.

Buddy and Little Guy (or should I say Mario and Luigi) had a great Halloween. Their mom took this photo just as they were setting out for Trick or Treat last Saturday. When they came back, those bags were FULL! Then they helped hand out our candy to the Trick or Treaters in our neighborhood. At the end of the evening, the firetruck came down the street and a fireman gave everybody candy.