More Orange, John Deere, and Amanda

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

This week's orange blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge are 16 patches, with 8 different orange prints and 8 different light prints.  These are fun to make. 

The cute carrot fabric came from my friend Joey's scraps, as did some other yummy orange prints.

I think that's my favorite part of making quilt blocks--putting together adorable scraps.

Where do all these scraps come from?  Well, here's one place--my local quilt store!  They have a giant basket of scraps that customers are welcome to root through.  We can fill up a bag for a small price, and take them home.  Wanna see what I got?

All this was in that bag!  Good quality fabric scraps, just waiting to be made into quilts.

Like this one!  I finished the little farm quilt this week.
 

The blue and white striped "My John Deere" fabric was a small piece I bought in an antique mall, and I used up nearly every bit of it.

The dark blue squares and the narrow inner border were in the same fat quarter bundle I got at a recent quilt show.  (I always look for whatever fabrics are marked down at the show, of course.  Don't you?) 

The batting is poly.  I cut it from a thicker poly and then just pulled it in half to make it thinner.  It actually worked!  Still soft, but not quite as puffy.  And there's another half ready to be used!  Bad news, though, it means I can make twice as many quilts from the giant batting  rolls Joey got for me.  Gotta sew faster!

The back of the quilt is this John Deere tractor print.  The quilt will be donated to Project Linus locally.  I'm hoping it will go to some little farm girl or boy.  God bless the farmers, we all need them.

More scraps are in my new project above.  (Check out the scrap from the farm quilt!  Leftovers from one quilt go into the next one, of course!  And on and on forever!)

The block is called Amanda, and comes from Me and My Sister Designs.  I've had this book forever, but just suddenly realized it would be perfect for my 3.5 in. squares and 1.5 in. wide strips.

Here's the front cover of the book, it's 3 Times the Charm, by Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson.  They call it that because each quilt pattern is made up into three quilts, and most of the pieces can be cut from charm squares.  All of the patterns have women's names.  There are 3 more books in the series.

My 1.5 in. wide strips live in this little overnight case.  I sorted them, and separated out the light prints, solids, pinks, and blacks.  The big pile is Everything Else.  Amanda is going to be a fun quilt!

I may use the black prints for this project, but not the others.  I also moved the very short strips to the schnibbles box to be made into crumb blocks. 

Now that the kids are well again, we're having fun on the playground!  It seems I always take a photo of one or another of them inside this orange tube during orange month!  Our Little Guy was thrilled to be climbing up it again and enjoying the nice weather.

Rain is expected for this weekend, so we'll try to enjoy the sunshine while we can.  I'm wishing sunshine and scrappy fun for you too this week.

Cheers 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

 

 

Make Do and Mend

Welcome to Treadlestitches!
I am not a fan of mending, but this is a sad state of affairs.  I cleaned out the linen closet, and found an old beloved quilt I made many years ago.  Some of the fabrics were good quality, and some weren't.  We also used it a lot, and washed it over and over.

In addition to the bigger rip, there was this one, probably caused by me using a too-small seam allowance.

I can't say I don't have the time to fix this!  Time is something I suddenly have.  So I appliqued larger strips over the rips.

Now it's a usable quilt again!  The mends are big and clunky, but they'll hold up better that way.  The blue "house" was meant to be a barn, in the middle of the "straight furrows".

So that's mending.  I also mended some of my unmentionables, which I guess are not really unmentionable if I just mentioned them.  They are definitely, however, unphotographable.

The last time we went to the grocery store, they were out of almost anything for cleaning or even washing dishes.  I like to have a small sponge-like thing to scrub stubborn pots and pans, just one step down from steel wool pads.  The ones we had were disgusting on the outside, and I had just been throwing them away and buying new.  (Oops!  Not eco-friendly.)  So I'm trying this.  I cut the cover off, soaked the inner foam rubber rectangle in boiling water, and then sewed an old dishcloth over it.

Not elegant, but it works.  The mesh side of the dishcloth helps with scrubbing.  I know I could order things, but I'd rather make do with what I've got if I can.  No one had to bring it to me, I didn't have to wait for my order, and this cost absolutely nothing.

Is using your stash really "making do" if your stash is almost as deep as Lake Michigan?  Here's what I was working on from my stash this week.

The little blocks are all lined up, ready to sew, and my tumbler leaders and enders coming along.

And here's the finished springtime baby quilt.

Do you see all the colorful little bugs in the white sashing fabric?  It's a Me and My Sister print.  I bought a yard of it on sale at a quilt show in February.  (Wonder when we'll have quilt shows again?)

The pattern came from this book, 3 times the charm, also coincidentally by Me and My Sister Designs.

The name of the pattern is Dora.  I changed a few things--cut the white parts wider, added sashings and cornerstones, and made more blocks, but this was the inspiration.

The border came from a big scrap I bought second hand.  I guess that's the making-do part.

The back wasn't wide enough, so I added a strip of the border fabric.  Hey, making do again.

I really loved this back, with these happy colorful caterpillars.  This should be a cheerful donation quilt for a baby girl.
Speaking of babies:

Here are my two youngest grandchildren.  I'm calling them Little Buddy and Baby Buddy.  Their mama has to go back to work in May, but only one day a week, so they're coming to hang out with us.  So is their wonderful big brother, Big Buddy.  I can hardly wait.

We're all being very careful about staying at home, wearing masks if we have to go to a store, and washing our hands relentlessly.  We need to keep the little ones, and all of us, safe.

Stay safe this week, everyone!  Thanks for reading.
Cheers,
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