Pastel Baby Quilt Top, Aqua Blocks, and Criss Cross Stars

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Hello, quilters!  It's a beautiful summer morning here, and I'm hanging out my pastel baby quilt top for a photo.

The blocks were made in June, which was pastel month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Pastel colors didn't really fit with my usual bright-as-the-sun RSC blocks, but no worries, I could just make a pastel  quilt.  I chose the fabric above for the alternate blocks, and made the pieced blocks from my small stash of baby-friendly prints.

This one literally says "Baby"!

So does this one, plus "cutie pie" and "little sweet pea".

I had a few light prints with baby toys to add in.

Two of the prints had diaper pins on them!  The one is a vintage fabric.

These are the kind of diaper pins I used with my kids, way back in the 1980s.  Hey, moms, did you use cloth diapers too?  It was certainly cheaper than buying disposables.  But definitely messier lol.

The quilt will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.  I'm not sure if I'll donate it as a top or quilt it myself.  The center serves foster children as young as 3 months.  Absolutely heartbreaking, but I'm glad the kids are getting help.

In other news, aqua blocks are getting made for July's RSC color.  This set is my Greek Cross blocks.

The cat fabric in the center of this block came from a quilt shop in Edinburgh, Scotland.  I call them my British kitties.  I only had a fat quarter of it, and I will be very sorry when it's used up.  But that's what's it's for, after all.

Equal time for dogs!  Good old American Scooby Doo is sniffing out crime in this print.  Or maybe just looking for Scooby Snacks?

More aqua RSC blocks!  These are my Whirlygigs, some in blue-ish aqua and some in greenish.  I'm showing two sets of RSC blocks this week, because I won't be posting next week.  My mom and nephew are coming to visit!  Mom hasn't been here in a while due to health issues, but she's doing great now and the family can't wait to see her.  My nephew is taking the ferry across the lake from Michigan.  It's going to be a good time, but no time for quilting and blogging.

In Progress

I'm still making Criss Cross Stars, a Lori Holt pattern.  (To see her YouTube tutorial, click HERE.)  For the squares in the center of the blocks, I'm using either multicolor prints or black background prints.  I have a lot of each of these, and I tend to forget about them.  My biggest problem was finding "calmer" backgrounds in my stash, but I finally got all the blocks cut at least.

About two weeks ago, Hubby and I went to the big flea market in Elkhorn, Wisconsin.  I didn't buy much (mostly fruits and vegetables at the produce stand) but I took a few quilt pictures.  I always love to see the old quilts...

...and the new ones!  Great scrap quilt, love the red!  Those skinny flying geese (do they have a special name?) as sashings are amazing.  Very dramatic!

This Little Guy can also be dramatic!  I got to spend more time with just him the last two weeks while his brother was at wrestling camp.  The new Toy Story movie came out, and he wanted to make this version of Forkie after he found a red pipe cleaner.  We improvised with what we had here.  True to the movie, Forkie jumped in the trash a couple of times, but was rescued.  A happy ending.

I hope you're having a happy ending or beginning to this week!  Happy Quilting!

See you on July 25th!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these terrific ladies:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Thrifty Top and Orange Whirly-gigs

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it?  This quilt top is made from blocks I made last year as part of the RSC.  The block pattern is called Thrifty, and is #1602 in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

It's kind of a long quilt (especially for me!), so I had to fold it over for the clothesline photo.  Here on the floor you can see all 20 blocks.

I tried something new with the sashing.  The blocks are 9 in. finished, and each division in the block is 3 in.  For the sashing, I used 3 in. finished squares in bright colors.  I chose squares that were more monotone in color than my usual novelty prints.  There's no rhyme or reason to the color placement of the sashing strips.  I just put them where I thought they looked good.

The border is this blue printed plaid.  I've been steering away from plaids as borders, thinking I would have to match the plaid if piecing the border strips.  That can be hard to do with a printed plaid.  Then I noticed commercial items like shirts etc. don't always match the plaids, and I gave myself permission to relax about it.

It was fun revisiting these blocks when putting the top together.  It will go to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee after being quilted by a volunteer.

Speaking of the CAC, all these quilts and tops got dropped off this week.  The drop off point is about 30 minutes from my house (more like 45 min. now due to construction) so I only go about every other month.  These quilts and tops are the ones that have been shown on the blog since the last drop off in February.  

This load was 8 small quilts, 1 twin-sized quilt (the princess one), 5 lap/twin tops, and two small flannel quilts. The flannel quilts were made by Terrific Tammy and Awesome Joy from my wonderful quilt guild.

It's orange month at the RSC, hurray!  I love patterns like this that seem like magic.  The block starts with 2 sets of 2 matching charm squares, and ends up like this.  (Click HERE for the tutorial from Sew Preeti.)  

When I decided what to make for my RSC blocks this year, I went through my orphan blocks and found some whirly-gig blocks I had made to test the pattern.  They needed to be made into a quilt.  Four of these orange ones were in the bag, so I only had to add 2 more.

These are the two new ones.  Check out that Star Wars fabric!

Trees are bursting into blossom now, like this little apple tree in the park.  My walks are much more colorful.

It's been rainy the last few days, so we've been doing inside things like puzzles and games and reading.  My youngest daughter and her son Little Guy were curled up on the couch reading his favorite Pokemon book.

I'm in a rush today, I'm going to a meeting of the Wisconsin Quilt Study Group about 2 hours away.  Should be lots of fun and lots of wonderful quilts antique quilts to see.

Have a good week, everyone!  And thanks for reading this.

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these great linky party hostesses:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Strings and Whirlygigs

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Does your guild encourage members to try new techniques?  Ours certainly does!  I try to participate when I can.  Learning new things is good for us.

This month our guild had a challenge project using a particular method of quilt-as-you-go, where the quilting and piecing are done at the same time.  Sort of.  This is my finished project.

You could use any blocks, so I chose string blocks.  I pieced the strips onto a square of scrap batting, piecing and quilting in one step.  So far, easy and fun.

It got a little tougher at the next step.  I cut solid blue backing squares 2 in. bigger than the string squares, and spray basted the string squares to them.  Then comes the joining together part.  The backing squares are sewn together with a one-inch seam right next to the string blocks, and the seam allowances are folded over the front of the blocks, pressed under, and top stitched down.  I hope this makes sense. 

It was pretty easy to DO, but for me it wasn't easy to get everything to line up right, even with the help of an iron.  I was not very happy about how uneven it looked.

The fabrics in the blocks were bright and fun, and I was glad to use them up.  On the advice of the project leader, I bound the quilt with a separate binding, but you could do the edges the same as the block joins.

Here's what the back looks like.  Each one of those squares is a separate piece of fabric.

All in all, it wasn't my favorite method, but it was good to try something new.  And maybe I'm just too critical of my quilt, since it won third place in the judging!  I got a $15.00 gift card to a quilt shop!  The quilt will be donated locally.

Do you see the snow in the picture above?  I took that photo yesterday.  Today the snow is nearly gone, and runoff water is everywhere.

This ditch in the park still has ice at the edge though.

Today it's 57 degrees F and sunny, and it feels like spring if you don't look at the piles of snow here and there.  I saw two Sandhill Cranes this morning in the park, and three robins in our front yard.  None of them consented to pose for photos, sadly.

 

More red blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  These are four of my whirlygigs.  I dug into the novelty scraps for these.  There are dogs and paw prints, teddy bears and hearts, bugs and ants, and dots and Dr. Seuss.

Two more, with Bucky Badger, ladybugs, and baseballs.  I was really supposed to make five, but got carried away.  Oops, extra!

This time I added a new step when making them, and it helped them come out straight.  It was suggested by Maggie Fellow of the Making A Lather blog.  After sewing the two pieces together for each of the four quarters of the block, Maggie squares them up.  OMG, this is the best idea!  Why didn't I think of that?  (Because I'm not a genius like her, of course.)  The original design says to square the whole block up, but honestly this works better.  Thanks, Maggie!  (Click HERE and scroll down for Maggie's directions.  Her blocks are called Rolling Windmills.)

In Progress

The Twinkle Twinkle Scrappy Star top is still in progress, and might be finished for next week's blog.  Stay tuned!

This little quilt kit is on deck after Twinkle.  Did you ever send away for a kit from Quilts for Kids back in the day?  They would send you everything you needed for a top.  Once it was done it was sent back to them to quilt and distribute to kids in hospitals.  I did several of those, both from Quilts for Kids and made up from my own fabric.  This is a similar kit I put together for myself.

In the kit are 15 Bright Hopes blocks I made for last year's RSC, plus 15 squares of a print that looks like kids' crayon drawings.  There are also four 1.5 in. strips for an inner border, and four 3.5 in. strips for the outer border of the same crayon drawing fabric.  Fun and easy to sew!  I can't wait to get started.

I'd show you the scraps for my leaders and enders project, but Lizzy is sitting in the box!  This project is going to take a while, especially since I now realize I need 36 blocks, not 30.  But, a little at a time, it will be sewn.

So what's going on in your world today?  I hope you are having time to do things you want to do.  Have a lovely week, everyone!  

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

Many Hands Make Light Work, and a Scrap Tsunami

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

 

Technically, I managed to take an outdoor photo of this quilt now that it's finished.  The wind was terrible that day, it's a miracle I got to take it at all before the clothespins shot off the clothesline and I had to grab the quilt to keep it from falling.  Weird weather here lately.

Ah, that's better, safely inside.  You might remember this as a top I finished in December.  The charm squares were given to me by a friend at quilt guild.  I sewed them up, and added the border from stash.

Another friend, the Amazing Colleen, did the quilting on her long arm, and it turned out great!

Our guild supplied the batting and this colorful blue backing.  I did the binding, with pink binding also supplied by the guild and made by one of the members. 

Lots of us put our time and effort into finishing this quilt.  Many hands really do make light work!  It will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

 I didn't have a lot of time for sewing this week, but I am keeping up to date on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  These are the Whirlygigs, made using Preeti Harris' tutorial. (Click HERE).  One of these prints is an Easter print with Snoopy and Charlie Brown.  Lately I decided to just go ahead and use holiday prints on my scrap quilts.  It's all fabric, right?

Wonderful and fun things happened this week!  The Winter Quilt Show in West Bend last Saturday was a highlight.  One of the vendors had these antique sewing machines for sale.  They were calling to me, but I didn't weaken.  I still have several and enjoy getting them out from time to time.

These ladies were documenting a lovely crazy quilt from the 1880s.  It was in very good condition, with very little shattered silk.

This was my favorite quilt in the show!  The maker wrote about her immigrant grandparents in her artist's statement.

This little quilt is inspiring me to make something similar with novelty print squares.  I haven't figured out just what yet.

I might have bought some fabric at the show.  But none of it cost over $10 per yard!

In Progress

The Farm Quilt is coming along well.  All the blocks are finished and set together, ready for the borders.  I'm taking a little time to decide which fabrics to use.  I'm glad to have several good choices.

Meanwhile, the green crumbs and strings are spread out all over as I work on February's final RSC set.

But, scraps got me sidetracked!!!

Wednesday night was our monthly guild meeting.  This scrap tsunami was on one of the tables.  The scraps were donated to the guild by someone in the community.  Our guild has quite a large stash of fabric yardage, but we have no room for scraps. We were encouraged to TAKE SCRAPS HOME.  Any not taken would be donated elsewhere.  Woo Hoo!!!

Look at all the cool stuff I snagged!  Plus the Amazing Colleen brought me some too.

All I can say is, the scraps made me do it!  This is what I did this morning, instead of working on all the other quilts in progress.  The block on the left above was in the scrap tsunami.  I really liked it.  It's like a big Bright Hopes block.  All of a sudden I decided to make a quilt like this, but using a charm square for a center instead of the original 5.5 in. square.  (The charm squares are trying to burst out of their plastic shoebox.  Must use them up!)  My practice block is the one on the right.

I already had the new-to-me scraps out, so I cut all the rectangles I could from them.  I chose non-novelty prints for these, mostly geometrics, knowing I would use novelties for the centers.  The rest of the needed rectangles were cut from my parts department.

All I have to do now is choose charm squares, and I can start sewing this quilt as leaders and enders.

So that was my week.  How was yours?  I hope you had at least as much fun as I did!  

Take care, and happy quilting!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap