Jelly Twist, the Parts Department, and Rail Fence

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

A little finish on the clothesline today!  It's called Jelly Twist, and is from a pattern by Cluck Cluck Sew.

This size is not in the pattern, but it's just 16 blocks set 4 x 4, with a 3 in. finished border, so no complicated math needed, thank goodness.  It is possible to get confused making the blocks, but the pattern is thankfully in color and that helps a lot.  If there is a way to mess it up, I usually find it, but it's not difficult if you keep your wits about you, and are not me.

The border is a very subtle Toy Story print, with silhouettes and names of the main characters.
 

For quilting, I just did a 2 in. grid with the curvy serpentine stitch on my Pfaff.

On the back, I've got this print of multicolored hearts on white.  I had a big piece of it I was saving for a larger quilt, but decided to go on and use it up now. 

This quilt is brought to you by my Parts Department.  Every colored rectangle in the quilt is a different fabric.  I did not have to drag out any yardage or even cut up any scraps to piece the blocks, which meant I could start sewing right away.

This is my Parts Department.  I'm not sure who came up with the term Parts Department for our precut stash, but I love it.  Each quilter can customize her/his system to the sizes and shapes they use most often.  Most of my Parts Department stash is hand cut by me, but I do sometimes have charm squares or jelly rolls that are commercially cut.  When I cut up scraps, I trim them to the largest size possible, and then store them in the boxes and drawers.

When I first started my own Parts Department, I filled all of the drawers with 1880s reproduction scraps, because that's what I was sewing.  Gradually I started making more and more quilts with bright novelty prints, and needed room for those scraps.  Back in 2018, I decided to make a rail fence quilt as a leader and ender project, which would help me use up my 2 in. wide repro scraps and make room for the 2 in. bright scraps.

There are all kinds of ways to make rail fence blocks.  I made these with 4 strips, cut 2 in. x 6.5 in., for 6 in. finished blocks.  Each block had one strip of the brown floral, one strip of lightish print (ranging from white to dark beige) and two random colored strips.  Eventually, I had 143 blocks.

I set them 11 x 13, and then just put the top in a pile to decide on a border.  It sat in that pile for at least 4 years.  Until this week, when I finally put a 3 in. border on it!

The border is this Jo Morton print I had in the stash, that I also used for a different quilt.

So now the top is done!  But I'm not going to put off quilting it.  I'm not going to quilt it at all!  I'm donating it, and the wonderful ladies in my quilt group will quilt it.  I think it will look nice with some curvy long arm quilting stitches.  It can be warm and comforting for someone who needs it.

Here's what's left of the 2 in. reproduction strips--just one plastic shoe box.
 

And now the drawer is filled with 2 in. wide bright print strips, bagged up by color.  I can easily grab what I need, especially when making blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

In other news, the weather here has been weird!  On Thursday, the boys and I went to the park for a little while.  The temperature was in the high 70s (F), and it had even been over 80 at the beginning of the week.

Buddy was showing off his acrobatic skills.

Friday, the high temp here was a cool and rainy 60.  This morning when I got up it was 41 degrees F.  Time to get out the winter coats, and make sure we have hats and gloves/mittens ready.

Snicklefritz likes snuggling into a pile of quilts on days like this.  Or on any day.  Me too!

Have a lovely day, whatever the weather, and a good week ahead.

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Check out these great linky parties!

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy
 

 

Rainbow Triangles, and Straightening Up

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's a Blast from the Past!  I started this little quilt in January of 2021 as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt for that year.  Each month I made 20 half square triangles (3 in. finished) from the color of the month.  Recently I dug them out, sewed them into 6 in. blocks, and put the quilt top together.

My inspiration was this photo of a brave nurse in New York being one of the first people vaccinated against Covid.  I was inspired by her dedication, but also distracted by the logo of the hospital/health company on the wall behind her.

This is my version, different from the original photo but kind of the same idea.  Most of the fabrics I used were subtle prints, but a few bolder ones sneaked in.  (Looking at you, green with stars!)  The quilt will be donated locally.

The border and the binding are batiks.  The blue one came from the museum sale in June, and the green one was a larger scrap from the clearance table at a quilt shop.  I haven't used batiks a lot, but I'm loving the bright colored ones.

The back is this fun print.  I got two yards of it at the quilt show a couple of weeks ago.  I quilted a 3 in. grid (across and down) plus a diagonal grid on the long side of the triangles.

Snicky is taking his job as "poser" very seriously.  I can't lay a quilt down without him jumping on it (or diving under it).

Catching up on projects is part of what I'm doing with my "extra time" now that Little Guy is in preschool 3 mornings per week.  Right now, I'm using that time to think, plan, and organize.

I forgot to take a "before" photo when I straightened up this shelf unit. If you want to know what it was like, you'll just have to imagine clutter, a thick layer of dust, piles of books and magazines, and smaller boxes of fabric stacked on top of each other.  I have lots of fabric "inventory" now, after the recent sales, so I needed bigger boxes, and lids are great at keeping the dust out.

Reorganizing the tools was important.  The basket on the left holds all the rotary cutter stuff, like extra blades.  The tins next to it hold used blades and specialty pins.  Behind them is my pinker (the thing with the handle) and a wood block originally used to print fabric (not by me. Yet?).

Some of my antique finds are on the top shelf, along with a newer Singer tin that stores needles.  The  little flowered box holds tiny spools of thread.  I just think it's cute, I'm not planning on using the thread.

I want my sewing room to be pretty as well as functional.  It makes me happy to be here.

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge makes me happy, too!  

This week's blocks are the 16 patch ones.  Now that all the blocks are done, I need to decide how to put them together.  I plan on donating the finished quilt or quilts.  Should I make one twin sized quilt or two baby sized ones?  Are there places that would want a twin sized quilt with lots of crazy novelty prints?  I'm thinking it would be most appropriate for a child.  Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

Here's a new project I'm working on:  Jelly Twist, from Cluck Cluck Sew.  I bought the pattern while visiting my mom in July.  I'm using a white background, and choosing from these rectangles for each block.  Easy, fun, and colorful, it's a good pattern with all the math done for 4 different sizes.

No photos of the kids this week, sorry.  It was a crazier than usual week, but all is well.  I hope all is well in your week, too!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap