Churning Through the Scraps

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

I picked up the kit for these Churn Dash blocks at a quilt group meeting in April.  They were made from 1930s reproduction fabrics donated to the group.  I sewed the blocks on my treadle and put them together with yardage from my stash.  One of our volunteer long arm quilters will quilt it, and it will eventually be donated locally.

These colors and prints are so cheerful.  A quilt appraiser friend once told me the impression most people have of 1930s fabrics is lots of pastels, and there are plenty, but there was also widespread use of what she called "crayon colors", like red, orange, and dark blue.

The kit didn't include white squares for the centers, so I added the solid color ones.

Here's my favorite block, the one on the right.  It's made from a colorful fruit print, plus an orange solid square.  It's the only one like it in the quilt.

Orange is our Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month, and I am so glad!  I really love orange, and try to find orange fabric wherever I can. 

This week I pulled out all the big scraps, little scraps, fat quarters, etc. to start cutting.  (Does your ironing board collect mess like mine does?)

I started with Bright Hopes, since that's the easiest/fastest one.  The Hot Wheels rectangles came from Mr. M, who donated so much wonderful stash/scraps/etc. to our guild.

I'm having less time to sew now.  Want to see why?

These wild hooligans are off school for the summer.  Thank goodness we've been able to get outside most days to run off some of their energy.

I've also had a big project to work on:  cleaning out my quilt stuff in the basement.

Remember this from last week?

All of these vintage scraps have now been sorted.  Many of them were actually useless, just tiny scraps or low quality fabric, or had stains or other problems.  The bad ones have been trashed and the decent ones I didn't want/need were bagged up for the museum sale (drop off next week).

Here's what I kept:

The bag is full of feedsack strips for a string quilt.  The larger pieces of fabric next to the bag are left over from dresses I made for my oldest daughter back in 1979.  All the rest are scraps from 1930s to 1960s or so.

These are some of the fun fabrics I kept.  Bears in canoes, purple strawberries, and a floral print with what looks like the Liberty Bell on it.  I love weird stuff, old or new.

I also salvaged a rainbow of solid scraps.  They will be put to good use!

Every year, the Humane Society has a huge rummage sale at the county fairgrounds.  Last year I scored a vintage iron there for a dollar, and it lasted nearly a year.  This year I got this little G.E. iron for only 50 cents.  It's slightly smaller than my regular iron, and is a Dry Iron, so no steam.  This is perfect for me, I don't even use steam.  We'll see how long it lasts.  I feel like I've already gotten my money's worth.

The book I found at the sale is called Quilts From the Heart:  Quick Projects for Generous Giving, by Karin Renaud.  I had never seen this book before, but it's absolutely perfect for me!  Simple patterns, bright colors, and the author even loves novelty prints.  How did I miss this?  It was published in 2006.  I gladly paid 50 cents for it, and have already started one of the quilts.

Good news:  Mrs. Pfaff is back!!  My dear "coworker" and beloved sewing machine is back from the repair shop and sewing again.  I can't wait to get some quilting done.  But first I need to go to the Farmers Market, so I'd better wind this up.

Thanks for reading this long-winded spiel! Have a lovely week!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Check out all the great blogs at these linky parties!

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Strings and Rails and a UFO

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

This week I finished a new "antique" quilt.  I'm showing it here with some other antiques.  The pitcher and bowl belonged to my grandmother's adoptive mother, and it's sitting on a Minnesota A sewing machine from the 1890s.

Here's what I had when I started this quilt.  I don't know why I'm drawn to other people's UFOs, when I have plenty of them myself.  I saw this project at a sale, and really tried hard to leave it there.  It was a bag stuffed with these strips of little 4 patches (2 in. finished) and plain squares.  Only $10!  Of course I caved and bought it.

The project had to wait while I finished a few other things, but eventually I laid all the strips out on the table to decide on placement.  The original quilter had planned an on-point layout, but it looked like she had trouble figuring it out.  I had to do a little unsewing/resewing to get it right.

The fabrics in the top are 1930s reproductions.  I wanted the quilt to feel like an antique, so I added a border from my vintage stash.  The orange binding goes with the orange roses in the print.  And I would have used it even if it wasn't orange month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!

The quilting is a simple grid on the pieced area and a swag in the border. 

There are so many cute fabrics in these tiny squares!

The back is a 1930s repro from my stash.  More orange roses!

I'll be keeping this one.  It will go on my quilt ladder in the dining room.  I change them out seasonally.  This one looks like spring to me.

In other news, orange blocks for my RSC quilts.

String blocks are so much fun!  I make a giant mess sorting through the strings, but it's worth it.

I didn't realize before joining the Rainbow Scrap Challenge how many different shades of every color there are, like the oranges in these rail fence blocks.  I love including all the shades together.

We're getting close to the end of the year!  I can hardly wait to start putting the RSC blocks into quilts.

I spent last Saturday with a friend (hi, Joey!) and it was so much fun.  We had a lovely lunch at a Middle Eastern restaurant, and then we went to a going-out-of-business sale at a quilt store.  It's always sad when a quilt shop closes, but we were happy to help them sell off their inventory at half price.  This was the loot I brought home.  Do you see the orange?  It's a Cat in the Hat Halloween print!

So I guess I broke my "only buying second hand fabric this year" rule.  Oh well, I can live with that for $6 a yard quilt shop novelty prints!  

The best thing about Saturday wasn't fabric, it was having time to talk and laugh and enjoy each other's company.

My little grandsons start school on Monday, so I guess the summer is almost officially over.  Last Wednesday we went to my older daughter's house to visit, and had a picnic at the Lake Michigan shore.  These goofy guys had fun climbing on the rocks and looking for fossils.

Wednesday was my granddaughter's 13th birthday!  I can hardly believe how grown up she is.  That's her standing next to me.  I'm keeping a "death grip" on Buddy who has been running around like a nut.  Both of the little boys are making silly faces.  We do have a lot of fun.

I hope you're having a lot of fun, too.  Good luck with your projects, and have a great week!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

  

Safe at Home

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's finished!  Safe at Home is my name for my house quilt, one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects for 2020.

Last week, it was a roadblock.  This week, it's done and the way ahead is clear.

The pattern I used is called Home Made, was designed by Monique Jacobs, and was published in American Patchwork and Quilting magazine, issue # 162.  I used the house pattern, but made more blocks and set them differently than the original.  

When I started making the blocks in January of 2020, I had no idea what the year would bring.  I was just having fun using scraps of vintage fabrics, feedsacks, and 1930s reproductions in the color of the month.  

In March, the illness and death of the pandemic hit New York hard, and it was suddenly terribly real to all of us all over the country.  Home was more important than ever, as millions of kids (including our grandchildren) started virtual school, and millions of adults either worked from home or were unemployed.  

This quilt will always represent 2020 to me: the worry and fear we all felt every time we sneezed or coughed, the hilarious zoom fails of virtual preschool, the mask making, the dreaded toilet paper shortage, and the uncertainty still hanging over everything.

As I've mentioned on this blog before, I used a quilt-as-you-go method on this quilt.  (After all this time, I must admit I am REALLY tired of this backing fabric.)  I will be posting more on the way I do this in the near future.

 The border is a vintage 1930s-1940s print fabric, probably meant for dresses or blouses.  I only had just over a yard of it, so that determined how wide it would be.  I quilted simple diagonal lines in the border, and bound the quilt with a green solid, also vintage, from my basement "collection".

 My youngest grandson, whom I call Baby Buddy, was not really in a posing mood yesterday.  He's sort of ho-hum about the whole thing.

In other news, I got a few more half square triangles done for this year's RSC.  These are loose on my design wall, not yet sewn into groups of four, but this may end up being what I do with them.

And the blue ice cream cones!  I looked up some blue colored ice cream flavors on Wikipedia, and was surprised to find out about Blue Moon ice cream, invented in Milwaukee!  So I'm saying the cone on the bottom left is Blue Moon.  Above it is Blue Heaven, a blue colored Australian ice cream flavored with vanilla and raspberry (mine has little candies), next to a Blueberry ice cream with raspberry ripple and tiny sprinkles.  Lastly, we have a truly original imaginary flavor, blueberry with Victoria sponge cake, strawberries and cherries.  All this, and no calories.

Outside, the rhubarb is getting taller and looking very healthy.  Little Buddy hoped it might be ready to cut.  I made him some rhubarb cake from last year's canned rhubarb, so he's content to wait a little longer.

Leaves are appearing on the black raspberry canes, an encouraging sign.

Spring is progressing as it always does here, two steps forward and one step back.  There was frost on the grass this morning, but sunshine the rest of the day.

I'm wishing sunshine for you this week, and blue skies.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Shades of Purple

 

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  It's the last purple week of 2020 for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

So I dragged out all the purples, and boy was that fun.

Above is an antique quilt top from my collection, set with purple.  And that's why I bought it.  It's a little unusual to see purple as the sashes on a quilt older than the 1930s.  This one dates to about 1890 to 1920.

Here's a closeup of the sashing fabric.  Do you see where some of it is discolored?  It was common for purples to fade to brown or tan back in the day.  

Inspired by the old quilt, I'm thinking of putting my little Thrifty blocks together with this reproduction purple.  What do you think?

 I laid the new repro fabric (on the left) against the old quilt top.  They are very different shades of purple.

I noticed the same thing when cutting my scraps for my RSC blocks this week.  There are so many different kinds of purple!  Some are named for flowers and other plants, like lavender, lilac, violet and periwinkle.  Some are named for fruits and vegetables, like plum, grape or eggplant.  I love them ALL.

Why did I only buy a fat quarter of the bat print?  There is barely any left now.  (Please excuse the threads on the block, sorry.)

The purple 1930s house blocks are done, just in time for a new color later this week.

The roof of the house above comes from vintage dress fabric, and the background of purple flowers on white is cut from a feed sack.

The body of the house came from this Gingham Girl flour sack, made for a flour mill in Arkansas City, Kansas.  It was meant to hold 10 pounds of self-rising flour, but looks as though it was never put to use.

Polka dot house's roof came from a feed sack.

The only vintage fabric in the block above is the background of flowers on white.  It's like an old friend, I've been using it in so many quilts.

 My oldest daughter and her kids were here on Wednesday and Friday, which was fun for everyone, especially Little Buddy.

Grandpa is holding on to this wiggly guy.   Baby Buddy is wearing his swim suit.  Can you believe how cute clothes are now for babies?

This is as far as I got on the pennant baby quilt.  The top is done, the back is chosen and cut, and the frankenbatting has been hand sewn together.  I'm hoping to get it quilted today.

One of those silly kids hid this Peppa Pig under my pillow!  So she's going to stay with me, and help me in the sewing room.

 

I hope you have all the help you need for your sewing this week.  Take care of yourself, and stay safe.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

 

Linking up with:

Angela at So Scrappy

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Cynthia at Oh Scrap