Happy Variations

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

This week's story is a tale of two quilts.  

This one:

and this one:

(It was below zero when I photographed this one.  Of course it had to be an inside picture!)

There is definitely a family resemblance, but they're not exactly alike.  Both of them are variations on Happy Blocks quilts.

First up is this one, with a square in the center.  The only real difference from the usual Happy Block is the size of the center squares, which is 3.5 in. cut, instead of the more common 5 in. or 4.5 in..

Why so small?  Because this is what I started with!  The Amazing Colleen, a member of our quilt group's charity committee, brought me a lovely bunch of donated scraps and fabric, including these novelty squares.  The white edges were tiny and looked as though the blocks had been cut out of a top.  (No idea what the story was, sorry.)  I trimmed them to 3.5 in., which was the biggest I could get.

All that was left after trimming was a stack of 3.5 in. squares and this trash.

I framed each square with solid strips cut 2 in. wide, to make 6 in. finished blocks.  I hope it will be fun for kids to look at all the different prints.  They may need to have someone explain what phonograph records are.

The border is a Sesame Street print I bought at the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show in September.  The binding is a color I'm calling "Elmo red", it goes so well with that furry little guy.

The second quilt is actually made from Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt blocks from 2023.  I've been  thinking of different ways to set these very simple house blocks.  Framing them like Happy Blocks was an obvious choice.

I think of both of these quilts as I Spy quilts, since none of the novelty centers are repeated.  The houses are top-stitched to a 5 in. square, and then framed with 2 in. cut strips, making blocks that finish at 7.5 in.

Fun fact--There are two Dora's in the quilt:  Dora the Explorer (above) and D. W., Arthur's little sister from the Arthur books and TV show, whose full name is Dora Winifred Read (shown in the previous photo).

The house quilt's border is another Sesame Street print I bought from the same vendor.  The binding is the same "Elmo red" fabric.

Sometimes I think I should make bigger quilts more often.  Probably they'd be more useful.  But as a mother and grandmother I remember how nice it was to have small quilts to put on the floor for the babies.  And they were much easier to roll up and take with us on outings (the quilts, not the babies lol!).

Both of these quilts will be donated locally.

In other news, Buddy had his Christmas program at school.  There was lots of singing and excitement.  It always gives me a little boost of holiday spirit.  And the kids are adorable.  Especially our guy, of course!

I hope you're having a lovely week, and not stressing out too much about the holidays.  Maybe this holiday joke from my friend Debbie C. will help.  

What do you call an unidentified gingerbread man?  

John Dough

I laughed out loud at this one.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Melva at Sew and Tell

P.S.  The quilts I donated to the GSAFE auction brought in $510.00!  This year's goal of $40,000 was more than met.

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

Passing on the Comfort

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's a hazy shade of winter outside this morning, so indoor photos will have to do.  Here's my latest Rainbow Scrap Quilt finish, the first of the Uneven Nine Patch baby-sized quilts. 

Snicklefritz the cat is really getting the hang of posing on a quilt.  I think he likes this one.  Maybe because another name for this pattern is Puss in the Corner?

Here's a closeup.  The blocks alternate between light centers (like the Sneetches) and dark centers (like the stars and comets).  Each block is made from two light charm squares and two dark charm squares.  (Click HERE for some quick instructions.)  Of course there had to be a Green Bay Packers block!

This red block is my favorite: hands, and hearts, and love.

I'm sure you can't see from this photo, but the white fabric has a subtle butterfly print.  I bought several yards of this print for a different quilt, but changed my mind.  A strip of the blue butterfly print from the border makes the back wide enough.
 

Sometimes I wonder what happens to the quilts I donate.  I always hope they'll be loved and used, but you never know.   Just as I was thinking this, my friend Debbie C. sent me this photo.

It's a detail of a quilt found in Germany.  The tag on the back identifies it as being made by the Canadian Red Cross.  Hundreds (thousands?) of quilts were made in North America and shipped to Europe as World War II was ending, to help refugees and people recovering from the war.

This is the back, and the hand stitched label.

Here's what it looks like close up.  Great pattern, right?  And hand quilted.

The quilt was published in the Suture and Selvedge blog, which focuses on textiles and women's lives.  (Click HERE for the article). 

That started me thinking about a book I had read about similar quilts found in Europe, so I hunted it down on my quilt bookshelves.  It's called Passing on the Comfort:  The War, The Quilts, and the Women Who Made a Difference.  The authors are An Keuning-Tichelaar and Lynn Kaplanian-Buller.

Once I found it, I realized I had only skimmed it before, looked at the quilts, and moved on.  I am very disappointed in myself for doing that!  This week, I actually read it, and was very moved by An's narrative of living through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.  As a nurse and a Mennonite pastor's wife, she took in people fleeing and/or hiding, including Jewish children and adults, and did very dangerous jobs for the Resistance.

The quilts in the book were made mostly in the U.S. and Canada, and shipped out through the Mennonite Central Committee.  Lynn Kaplanian came along in the 1980s, saw the remaining quilts in a house she stayed in, and arranged for them to be exhibited.  She encouraged An to write down her memories.  

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in World War II history.

In other news, the GSAFE Quilt and Fiber Art Auction to benefit LGBT youth finishes on this Monday, Dec. 4.  I donated three of my quilts, including the crayon quilt above (but not my dog!).  Originally I had planned to give these quilts to other places, but I am finding that they are doing okay in the auction, even though they are miles away from perfect.  It makes me wonder.  Will I do more good by auctioning/selling quilts than by donating them directly?  Maybe I should set aside a few "special" quilts for these occasions? Something to think about.

Have a wonderful week, and happy quilting!

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

 

Rainbow Quilt in the Snow

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's gently snowing this morning, and for the first time this season it's sticking.  We're not expected to get more than a couple of inches, but the weather is letting us know what is ahead.  It looked like a good place to put my latest donation quilt finish, a 16 patch baby-size quilt.

The back is a warm flannel print, and the batting is the new poly batt Joey brought me.  It was easy to quilt, and will be nice and warm for a child to snuggle under.  It hasn't been washed yet, but it's in line next, after the Thanksgiving tablecloths.

I used the same border fabric as the Crossroads quilt I finished at the end of October.  The colors are set as a sort of rainbow.

There are so many little "pictures" in the 2 in. finished squares.  I spy a monkey, a ladybug, a football, letters, a frog, a hedgehog, and even a chicken.

The 16 patch above is the 4th Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt I've made this year.  There is a fifth one not quite finished yet, and then there is this big pile of blocks, waiting to be assembled.  Yikes!  I am probably not going to get done by the end of the year.  Maybe I should make fewer blocks next year.  Or bigger quilts!

Remember this RSC quilt from last year?  I finished it in January, and later donated it to the GSAFE Quilt and Fiber Art Auction, which starts this Tuesday, Nov. 28.  GSAFE is an organization that works to help LGBT youth in schools.  Click HERE to learn more about GSAFE.

I have three quilts in the auction, and there are hundreds more items.  The theme is In Rainbowland, which really fits with the RSC quilts, I think!  If you're interested, you can click HERE to preview the auction items.  Bidding starts on Tuesday.  The goal is to raise $30,000.  By the way, my quilts are numbers 231, 236, and 237.
 

I hope everyone who celebrates had a happy Thanksgiving.  I know we did!  My little grandsons and I made the pies on Wednesday.  They stirred up the pumpkin filling and rolled out their pie crust (with help of course!)  Each of them made a small pie, and got to eat it after lunch as an early Thanksgiving treat.

What is this Guy doing?  Is he a robot, or an astronaut?  Believe it or not, there is a practical reason for Little Guy wearing this on his head.

The boys' school was closed for the holiday all week, so on Monday we took them to one of Hubby and Buddy's favorite stores, The Gem Shop, Inc. in Cedarburg.  We bought some small geodes, and everybody had to wear eye protection when Hubby cracked them open.  We had safety glasses for Buddy, but none for Little Guy, so Hubby put that plastic dome on his head.  He liked it so much he wore it off and on the rest of the day.

With Thanksgiving behind us, we're getting ready for the busy Christmas season.  I hope the boys will help us decorate this week, and we'll be getting out all the Christmas quilts.

Have a lovely week!

Cheers for reading this,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap 
 

Happy Quilt #3, and Breaking Down the Scraps

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's a frosty morning here in Wisconsin, but the sun is shining and it might get up to 50 degrees F today.  No rain, so I'm hanging out the last of my Happy Blocks baby quilts made from my Rainbow Scrap Challenge squares.

I enjoyed finding a home for all these light-background novelty prints.  I hope the child who receives it enjoys it.

The back is this cute kids print.  A friend gave it to me knowing it would make a great back.  Thanks, Nancy!

One of the best parts of being a scrap quilter is all the variety!

Are you a scrap quilter?  Do bags and boxes and totes of scrap fabric set your heart pounding with excitement?  (Yeah, me too!)  Do friends, family, and random people give you scraps?  Do you actually BUY scraps to use in your quilting?  If so, you know what I mean by breaking down the scraps:  making them into useful pieces for quilts.  Lately I've been working on scraps I acquired at our guild's annual Silent Auction.

When I say "scraps", I mean pieces smaller than a fat quarter.  If they're big enough, say 6 in. wide or wider, I don't cut into them, I put them in the Big Scraps basket to cut as needed.  

The smaller ones take more work.  I'm talking about strips, small scraps, etc.  LOTS of etc.
 

I often find strips in scraps from other quilters, which is great.  If they're already a width I normally use, even better!  I can just store them in my personal Scrap Savers System, an idea made famous by the amazing Bonnie Hunter.  The scrap strips above are NOT widths I use, or are irregular cuts, etc. so they will have to be pressed and trimmed or cut down.

If the strips are a good width like these 2.5 in. ones above, but are short, I cut them into squares and rectangles. 

After strips, I tackle the small pieces, cutting these also into squares and rectangles.  It's a bit more tedious, so I do a small stack before working on other projects.

It sure feels good to see them neatly stacked, ready to sew!

Now for the Etcetera, which is what I call pieces sewn to other pieces.  Many of these are strip sets, already sewn together, or the ends of strip sets from which pieces have been cut by the original quilter.  There are also badly made blocks and parts of blocks, which I guess the quilter gave up on but couldn't throw away.

I often wonder what other people do with these.  If you use them, I'd love to know your method.

Here's a weird one:

The fabrics are cute.  How could I make this useful?

I cut this up into 3 hsts (2.5 in. x 2.5 in.), 2 squares (2 in. x 2 in.), and four small bits for crumb quilts.  There was a second one of these, and I did the same thing with it.

The most common etc. I find are 2.5 in. strips sewn together.  This is a great size that I use often, and cutting them apart would make them too small.  If at least one of the strips is something I know I'll use, I put them in a basket with a seam ripper, and rip them apart while watching TV.  Ripping is a drag, of course, but I hardly notice it when solving a mystery with Hercule Poirot or "baking" with the Great British Baking Show.

As I was sorting and cutting and ripping, I found lots of 2.5 in. squares, many with novelty prints.  Treasure!  I added some from my stash and cut alternate blocks of a gray print, to make this little 4 patch top:

 It was great to have these squares for leaders and enders while working on other projects.  I hope to get it quilted soon.

 Snicky is good company in the sewing room, although he hasn't quite left his life of crime behind.  I have got my eye on you, Furry Friend.

Halloween is over, but a patchwork ghost made an appearance in our house! Buddy is pretending to run away.  These guys crack me up.

I hope your week is ghost free and full of fun.  And to all the veterans everywhere, Happy Veterans Day!  And THANK YOU!!!

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