More Bright Hopes, Orange, Quilt History, and Art

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

May is such a busy month!  I didn't have much time for sewing this week, but I mananged to drag this little quilt over the "finished" line last evening.  It's a donation for the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

The pattern is an old standby from the Quilts for Kids website.  (Click HERE for the link.)  Instead of 4 patches I used some of the leftover blocks from last year's Bright Hopes stack, made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I think I can get one more quilt from them.

The unpieced blocks are a cute print that looks like children's drawings.  I bought this from Hancock Fabrics online on a whim.  I always justify buys like this to myself with these four words:  It Was On Sale.  Which it was!

I don't usually add a narrow inner border, but this quilt really needed it since the border and the alternate block are the same fabric.

The back is this cute print, which is also meant to look like children's drawings.  I bought it second hand and have had it forever.  It was good to find a home for it.

A two inch grid in serpentine stitch was quickly quilted, and the binding is the same fabric as the inner border.  It's a small quilt, just 38 in. x 44 in., which should work well for a baby or toddler.

The orange blocks are really standing out to me this month.  Isn't it a great color?

It was fun sewing the orange Half Log Cabin blocks.  I only had to make 4, because the one on the bottom right was one of the blocks I made to try out the pattern.

Orange novelty prints can be hard to find, but thank goodness for Halloween fabrics!  Even the Cat in the Hat print was meant for Halloween.

Check out the bats!

And of course these black cats!  I bought this print in Kentucky last fall.

In Progress

Oops, I forgot to show my work In Progress last week!  I was in too big a hurry to go to the WQSG meeting (more on that below).  I'm working on some leftover half square triangles that were in the back of the 2.5 in. square drawer.  I'm sewing them into 6 in. finished Friendship Stars to make another quilt like the one I just finished.  The orange ones are done!

The Wisconsin Quilt Study Group meeting last weekend was wonderful!  We met at the Lincoln-Tallman House in Janesville, Wisconsin, and the staff pulled out lots of quilts for us to enjoy.  I think this one was in the servants' quarters.  (Yay, orange!)

They even did a bed turning for us featuring some of their oldest quilts.  This one was wonderfully scrappy.  The colors were still vibrant.  Very little information was available on the date, but definitely before 1900.

As part of our meeting, we shared some of our family quilts.  I had to snap a photo of this one that belonged to Carol.  I have often admired this scrappy pattern.  Plus, more orange!

The museum staff was amazing, our tour guide was knowledgeable, fun, and patient, and the house is beautifully preserved.  We even got to see where Abraham Lincoln slept!  It was a lovely quilty day out.

Yesterday DH and I had another great day.  It was Grandparents Day at Buddy and Little Guy's school.  We saw their classrooms, played bingo, went to the bookfair, and viewed the art show.  Above Buddy is showing us his painting of sunflowers.

Little Guy is pointing to his project, a smiling snail with a colorful shell.

Little Guy was just happy to make something and have it displayed, but Buddy was disappointed not to get a ribbon for his project. I hope I can help them focus more on the satisfaction of creating and sharing art and less on competition.  Art (in whatever medium we like!) can give us joy all through our lives.

I hope you have a joyful week, with time to do what you love.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Thrifty Top and Orange Whirly-gigs

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it?  This quilt top is made from blocks I made last year as part of the RSC.  The block pattern is called Thrifty, and is #1602 in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

It's kind of a long quilt (especially for me!), so I had to fold it over for the clothesline photo.  Here on the floor you can see all 20 blocks.

I tried something new with the sashing.  The blocks are 9 in. finished, and each division in the block is 3 in.  For the sashing, I used 3 in. finished squares in bright colors.  I chose squares that were more monotone in color than my usual novelty prints.  There's no rhyme or reason to the color placement of the sashing strips.  I just put them where I thought they looked good.

The border is this blue printed plaid.  I've been steering away from plaids as borders, thinking I would have to match the plaid if piecing the border strips.  That can be hard to do with a printed plaid.  Then I noticed commercial items like shirts etc. don't always match the plaids, and I gave myself permission to relax about it.

It was fun revisiting these blocks when putting the top together.  It will go to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee after being quilted by a volunteer.

Speaking of the CAC, all these quilts and tops got dropped off this week.  The drop off point is about 30 minutes from my house (more like 45 min. now due to construction) so I only go about every other month.  These quilts and tops are the ones that have been shown on the blog since the last drop off in February.  

This load was 8 small quilts, 1 twin-sized quilt (the princess one), 5 lap/twin tops, and two small flannel quilts. The flannel quilts were made by Terrific Tammy and Awesome Joy from my wonderful quilt guild.

It's orange month at the RSC, hurray!  I love patterns like this that seem like magic.  The block starts with 2 sets of 2 matching charm squares, and ends up like this.  (Click HERE for the tutorial from Sew Preeti.)  

When I decided what to make for my RSC blocks this year, I went through my orphan blocks and found some whirly-gig blocks I had made to test the pattern.  They needed to be made into a quilt.  Four of these orange ones were in the bag, so I only had to add 2 more.

These are the two new ones.  Check out that Star Wars fabric!

Trees are bursting into blossom now, like this little apple tree in the park.  My walks are much more colorful.

It's been rainy the last few days, so we've been doing inside things like puzzles and games and reading.  My youngest daughter and her son Little Guy were curled up on the couch reading his favorite Pokemon book.

I'm in a rush today, I'm going to a meeting of the Wisconsin Quilt Study Group about 2 hours away.  Should be lots of fun and lots of wonderful quilts antique quilts to see.

Have a good week, everyone!  And thanks for reading this.

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these great linky party hostesses:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

The Last Pink Quilt for April

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Here's my last pink quilt for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month of April.  It was fun to scrounge around in my scraps to find 5 in. squares for the centers and 2 in. (cut) strips for the outsides of these Happy Blocks.  You could say it made me happy!

Some of these scraps have been waiting a long time for their chance to shine.  For example, check out Betty Boop playing the guitar.  I don't even remember where that fabric came from.

One of the squares came from scraps left from the Princess quilt I showed last week.  It's the fabric that keeps on giving.

I ran out of good bright pink for borders a couple of weeks ago, but I had a half yard of this wild floral.  The binding is the last of a pink polka dot.

Our guild's Stash Coordinator, the lovely Joy, brought this light floral piece to our last meeting, and I snapped it up for the back of this quilt.  There are only two small strips left of it, which are now filed in the parts department.

I'm happy to donate this little quilt to the Children's Advocacy Center for a child to keep.

So, what's In Progress this week?

 

I'm sewing 20 of last year's RSC Thrifty blocks together with sashing pieced from 3 in. finished squares.  It's a new idea for me, I'm liking it so far.

Also, orange scraps need to be tamed into blocks for the RSC May color of the month.  I love orange, so I'm psyched!

What's the weather like where you live?  Here, we are moving into spring, going back and forth from 40 degrees F to 80F and back.  At least, we haven't had any tornado warnings this week.  The dandelions are springing up all over the park.

I've put out some small quilts with spring colors.  I've shown these before.  Both of them were projects started and abandoned by unknown quilters that I enjoyed finishing.

Snicky and Lizzy are so excited when we open the windows.  Bird watching is their favorite thing.  Don't worry, the window screens keep them inside and the birds safe.

I hope you are keeping safe too, inside or outside!  Have a lovely week, and happy quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these wonderful hostesses:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

Still In the Pink

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

I'm still working through the pink scraps, and I have a finish!  It's a small quilt ready to be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

The main fabric in the quilt is this princess print.  A large scrap of it was donated to our quilt guild.  I had thought to use it as a backing, but it was both too narrow and too short for even a small quilt.  I ended up cutting it into 6.5 in. squares to alternate with the 4 patch blocks.  

A few fun prints were in my pink strips, like this llama fabric given to me by my friend Joey M.

And of course I had to include frog prints, like the one in the top left.

Anybody recognize this backing?  These fabrics with tiny hearts were very popular in the late 1980s/early 1990s.  I bought it second hand for $2 a yard.  It's still good and sturdy, and washed up nicely before quilting.

Can you see the binding?  I was so happy to find it in my stash (another gift from Joey).  The color was just what I was looking for.  It was only a fat quarter, but I made it work.

Snicky was my quilt tester today.  He assures me it is cuddle-worthy, ready to go to a child.  After washing, of course!

I have used this free pattern for literally years!  It comes from the Quilts for Kids web site.  Click HERE for a full page of their free patterns.

In other news, I put the borders on the Sticks and Stones top, and it's ready for donating as well.

No suitable pink showed itself here, but there's lots of pink in this mostly-blue Kaffe Fassett print.  It's one of my favorites, and has been around a long time.  The quilt store where I drop off the donated quilts has dozens of Kaffe fabrics (among all the other amazing fabrics!).  They even have a clearance section, and I often get good buys there.  (FYI, it's Quilt-agious in Mukwonago, WI)

In Progress

Still working on the Pink Happy Blocks quilt.  I think this will be my last pink quilt for a while.  As of yesterday the blocks were all in rows and the border has been pressed, ready to cut.

Remember this project?  It's called Cabin Steps, and I've been using it for leaders and enders.  I have 10 blocks done, and need 26 more.  The pieces are small (2 in. x 3.5 in. cut), so it will take a long time.  That's okay with me, it's steady progress and I'm not in a hurry.

The weather here has been crazy this week, with thunderstorms every night and the tornado watches and even warnings to go with them.  All that rain is causing flooding also.  We are very lucky to be safe and dry, and hoping for this spell to be over soon for everyone.

These cool guys were hanging out here the other night.  They make me smile every day.

You make me smile too!  Thanks for reading this silly little blog.  Have a wonderful week, and Happy Quilting!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

More Pink, and More Little Bricks

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

First, more little bricks, those 2.5 in. x 3.5 in. rectangles!  Here's another pattern that's easy and fun for using up all these little scraps.  This child's quilt uses 168 of them, in matching sets of two.

The colors are a bit brighter outside, but then you have my shadow taking the photo!

It was fun pairing up the scraps.  Dogs and cats and crayons and dinosaurs, oh my!  The Paw Patrol border was a find at a sale.  I hope kids still like Paw Patrol.

Sponge Bob is waving hello!

The blocks are 6 in. finished, and the quilt measures 44 in. x 50 in.  It will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

I first saw this block in the book Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott.  They call it Sparkling Gemstones, which is a good title since all their small pieces are Kaffe Fassett prints.  The directions were for strip piecing, but I wanted to use my scraps, so I adjusted it.  

To make one block, cut two pairs of little bricks 2.5 in. x 3.5 in., and sew into a four patch.  Cut two white (or other color) rectangles 1.5 in. x 6.5 in., and add to either the sides or the top and bottom.  Couldn't be simpler!  Set them alternating the orientation, just like a rail fence.

The back is this print of kids at a playground.  I bought it second hand from from someone selling their mother's stash at the Winter Quilt Show.  It wasn't quite wide enough, so I added a strip of red solid through the middle.

Pink:  In Progress

Pink month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is rushing by, so fast I can hardly keep up!  I got all the blocks done for this Sticks and Stones quilt, but didn't have time to add the borders.  Maybe later today?

I thought you might like to see the Christmas quilt I made in this pattern a few years ago.  This is my grandson Buddy, rolled up in the top before I quilted it.  It has been a while, he'll be 10 years old next month!  

I made some changes this time, widening the light strips to 2 in. cut and making all 4 squares in the block match.

More pink progress!  I have more pink scraps than I thought.  So of course I have to start another quilt!  The pattern is Happy Blocks, one of my old favorites.  This one uses 5 in. squares and 2 in. strips.  I'm making half of the blocks with dark strips and light centers, and the other half opposite.  And this is the last pink project this month.  (Probably?)

Easter at our daughter's house was wonderful.  All five of the grandchildren are gathered here, waiting to start the Easter egg hunt.  The teenagers were a little reluctant, but I think they had a good time anyway.

The youngest grandsons had one more day of Spring Break on Monday, so their mom and I took them to a local gymnastics center for a couple hours of fun and exercise.  Buddy, above, is getting ready to run down the ramp and jump in a foam pit.

Please pardon this blurry photo of Little Guy, he was jumping too fast for the camera.

Buddy even did stunts going down the bouncy slide.  It looked like great fun. Sadly, adults were not allowed on the equipment.

The kids are back in school now, and life has settled down.  Which means more time for quilting!  And that is what I'm wishing for you this week, and every week.  

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Cynthia at Oh Scrap