Q is for Quilt

 Welcome to Treadlestitches! 

And welcome to November!  I guess it really is fall now, although the grass is still green under the fallen leaves.

A lovely lady in my quilt group gave me an alphabet panel to make into a charity quilt.  I paired it with the red bears print , a second-hand find.  

It's a good thing there were two full alphabets on the panel, because it was very difficult to cut the letters apart and leave enough seam allowance.  Some of the letters were too close to the edge, or too close to other letters.  In the end I only had to fix one the letter, the Y, by adding a strip of white fabric cut from the panel.

T is for turtle, U is for Umbrella, and of course Q is for Quilt!  I did some simple outline quilting on the squares, and parallel lines in the borders.  The binding is the same fabric as the inner border.

Check out the back!  A few weeks ago Hubby and I went antiquing, and I found this print.  There are crayons, hearts, balloons, and, best of all, alphabets.  I hope a little child enjoys this quilt as much as I loved making it.

Did you have a good Halloween?  Our little grandsons definitely did.  Buddy is dressed as his favorite video game character, Link from Legend of Zelda.  Little Guy went as Pikachu, his favorite Pokemon.  After trick or treating, Buddy says he has enough candy now for a year.  

 Last year I made lots of these little houses for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  They're the simplest thing ever, just a 5 in. square with one seam across the top to make a point.  To me, they look like the kind of houses young children draw.  I made one quilt, but had lots of the houses left over.  (Click HERE for more info, my first post about them last January.) 

 By coincidence, I bought this glue stick when visiting with my friend Joey (hi, Joey!  We had such a fun day!) It's made by the same people that make a basting spray I use often.  The glue stick turned out to be just the thing I needed.  I'm using it to stick the little houses to a background 5 in. square so I can topstitch them down.  Works like a charm.

Next I'm adding solid strips all around to make a block I'm calling Happy Houses.  Of course I picked out the Halloween ones to do first!  Ghosts ...

and scary costumes.  The blocks finish at 7.5 in.  

It's been a happy busy beginning of fall.  Last Saturday we went on a short hike with our eldest daughter, her hubby, and our grandkids Mr. H and Miss E.  It was beautiful weather, just a little crisp with lots of sunshine.  (That's me in the back, where I like to be!  Mr. H just refuses to be in photos, so he took the picture.)

From the trail we could see this church, the Basilica and National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, high on the hill above us.  Another wonderful day.

I hope you have wonderful days too, this week and every week.  Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

ABCs and Summer Fun

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Even though school is out here for the summer, we still need to remember our ABCs!  This week I finished a little panel quilt as a donation to Quilts for Kids.  (Shown here with my black raspberry vines.  Can't wait for next month's harvest!)

I bought the panel at my local quilt shop.  It caught my eye because it was really colorful and cute.  The squares are printed, but I outline quilted them as though they were pieced.

The center of the quilt, including the solid red inner border, was the original panel.  I added a strip of light blue alphabet blocks print on each side to make it wider, and then added the red print border.

I stuck with the theme on the back, using an older print I've had in the Endless Stash for a while.  I bought it second hand, I think it was originally printed in the 1980s or 1990s.
 

By the time I got to the border, I ran out of ABC prints, so this turtle and butterfly/dragonfly one had to do.  The light blue binding is probably from the 1980s.  Hey, light blue for June's color in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  And another scrap used up.

Speaking of the RSC, this week's blocks are the Uneven Nine Patch blocks AKA Puss in the Corner.

I'm making half of them with dark centers and half with light.  They'll be alternated in the eventual quilts, but will be mixed up with all the other colors.

More cute fabrics keep turning up!  It's hard to stop making the blocks.

We're spending so much more time outside now that it's summer!  The little boys have lots of energy to run off.

Buddy posed for this picture.  He loves zooming past on the scooter.

Remember this rainbow xylophone square on the panel quilt?

Here it is in real life--with Little Guy playing the notes.  It's on the playground at the neighborhood elementary school.

Last week when we left the library, Buddy was telling me how much he loves going there, and I had a hard time not crying tears of joy.  Our library is terrific!  There are books on whatever you're currently obsessed with, from Thomas the Tank Engine (Little Guy) to Tornadoes and Turkey hunting (Buddy), and just fun stuff like Here Comes the Big Mean Dust Bunny! Plus a great summer reading program every year, and kind friendly people to assist us.  Support Your Local Library!

Have a great week ahead, everybody!  I hope it includes time for all the things you love to do.

Cheers 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

 

 

 

 

 

Something Old, Something New

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  It's the last Saturday of the month, and time for airing some quilts from my collection.

It's a pink parade for April, which has been pink month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I'm not really pink's biggest fan, so I don't make or buy a lot of pink quilts, but these called me to take them home.  Sadly I have no information on the original makers of any of these quilts.

Doll quilts always catch my eye.  If in perfect condition, they can cost a fortune.  But if it's in perfect condition, doesn't that mean a child never played with it?  Very sad.  The ones I buy are well loved.

This little one is kind of wonky.  Maybe a child made it?  Or a mama in a hurry?  All the work is by machine, including the quilting and binding.  It's hard to date quilts with only solid color fabrics, but I'm guessing around 1900, give or take 10 years in either direction.

Next up, a quilt that's both old and new.  I bought the blocks in an antique mall, and set them together with plain white and reproduction fabrics.

Even though pink is not my favorite color, these little blocks just insisted on coming home with me.  My guess on an age for them is circa 1930. 

I was apparently too lazy to make a label, but at least I wrote some information in the border.  Good heavens, I finished this 18 years ago this month!

Have you ever seen a quilt like this before?  Hundreds of quilts were made from this pattern, published in newspapers in the 1930s.  It's called The Alphabet Quilt, and the designer was Florence La Ganke Harris, who wrote under the pseudonym of Nancy Page.  

This is the announcement of the series from the newspaper.  Some of the papers ran contests for completed series quilts.

The Nancy Page column published a quilt block each week in the late 1920s through the 1930s, with the fictional Nancy advising her quilt club on how to make that particular block.  For the series quilts, Ms. La Ganke sometimes changed the format.  The Alphabet Quilt is being made by "Aunt Mary" for her young niece Joan, and Mary is sharing her progress with her friends.

Here is one of the newspaper patterns.  Quilters often cut them out and saved them, maybe planning to make the quilt someday.  (I can definitely relate to that!)

Most of the blocks in the quilt are simple applique, meant to be familiar to a child.  The last block is very unusual.  Ms. La Ganke gave quilters a choice.  They could either embroider X Y Z to finish the alphabet or they could do as this quilter did, and embroider the word YOU to make it a signature square.  (Either way, they would have 24 squares instead of 26, and could put it together 4 blocks by 6 blocks.)

This is the reason I bought these blocks on Ebay many years ago.  The maker has embroidered the name of the intended recipient, Billy Shannon, on the left, plus Mama and 1931.  In pencil she has written the word "from" just before Mama.  I felt like this project needed to be completed.

When this came to me, it was a UFO from at least 70 years ago.  All the blocks were done, and the pink frames had been added.  (Pink was not considered an exclusively girl color in the past.) 

I'm sorry that Billy Shannon never got his quilt.  I finished the blocks with vintage fabric, including the backing and binding, and did some simple quilting.  If I had any idea who the family was, I would pass it on to them.

Florence La Ganke designed many other series quilts, among them the Magic Vine, which was redone by Eleanor Burns a few years ago.  Patterns for these quilts and/or copies of the originals can be obtained from online sellers.  Check out this article on Nancy Page (Click HERE) by Wilene Smith for more information on Ms. La Ganke herself.

And now for something completely different.

I love to catch my young grandsons playing together peacefully.  It's not always like this! But they really do love each other.

In the week ahead, I'm wishing you peace and love.  And happy quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Angela at So Scrappy

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Cynthia at Oh Scrap