A Little Quilt, and A Visit from a Friend

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

How's the weather where you live?  We have had lots of sunshine this week, and even a warm day or two, but the nights are below freezing.  Maybe that's why this old maple tree is finally giving up its leaves.

The back is a piece left over from a bigger quilt.  I had to add a strip down the middle to make it big enough.

I did get the little four patch top quilted and ready to donate.  I tried out some new poly batting, and I am very happy with the way it looks and feels.

You might remember this photo from last March!  My grandson is hugging a roll of higher loft poly batting, sent to me by my friend Joey.  There were TWO of these!  I nicknamed them Big Bertha and Gerta.  Unfortunately, I struggled using this weight of batting on my domestic sewing machine and with my limited skills.  Joey offered to trade a lighter weight of poly for these, since she can definitely use them on her long arm machine.

Somehow we managed to get Bertha into the back seat of Joey's car (thank goodness batting squishes!) and Gerta into the trunk.  It must have looked crazy to the neighbors, I hope we aren't on anybody's video.

Here's my new roll of batting.  I'm calling her Polly Esther.  She expanded a bit after I opened the plastic, but nothing like Bertha! 

Not only did Joey drive 3 hours to get here, bring me batting, and take Bertha and Gerta home, she also made this gorgeous thread/scrap catcher for me!  This is the prettiest one I've ever seen.

Here it is laid out.  I absolutely love it.  It might be too pretty to use, but it brightens up the sewing room, so I'm using it.  Thanks, Joey!

We had a lovely day when Joey was here.  We went to an antiques sale, and then out to lunch.  It's great to just have time to talk and laugh and catch up.

I'm doing a little piecing, like these Two Step blocks from Missouri Star, but I don't expect to get much done this week.  Thanksgiving is this Thursday, and I'm the main cook.  I'll be baking brown and serve rolls today to put in the freezer, and bread for the dressing either today or tomorrow.

This is the quilt guild Block of the Month for January, the Potato Chip block.  I'm way ahead of myself making these, but it's hard to stop!  (That's why it's named Potato Chip--you can't make just one!)
 

All the pieces for this block are 2.5 in. x 4.5 in. rectangles, and I have lots of them already cut.  So I may piece a few blocks while the turkey is roasting.

The little boys don't have school at all next week, so we'll find some things to do here.  Little Guy loved our visit to the library this week.  They always have interesting kid-friendly things for the kids to play with, like the pretend Farmers Market in the foreground, and the cardboard barn with chutes for "eggs" to go down.

One day this week was really warm for November, so I let the kids play on the playground for a bit after school.  Buddy is king of the mountain.  (Sorry for the poor quality photo.)

Thanksgiving is a lovely holiday, dedicated to being grateful for all our blessings.  I have so much to be grateful for!  Family and friends are at the very top of the list.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate, and have a wonderful week!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

I'm thankful for these terrific bloggers and the linky parties they host!

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

 

 

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

 

Is It Spring Yet?

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Happy April!

And the April color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is (drum roll please) pink!  Isn't it fun to get a new color?  I always start the month pulling out the big scraps and small yardage to see what I've got to work with.  

 As usual, there is some cute stuff and some weird stuff.  (Note to self, I've got to find a use for these pigs!)

Most of the time, I'm making baby-sized quilts to be donated.  I like to make what I call Everybody Quilts, that could be given to either boys or girls.  If I use pink, that usually restricts the quilts to girls because pink is considered a girl color.  I have heard that charities receive more "girl" quilts than "boy" quilts (not sure if this is true?) so I concentrate on colors that will work with either gender.

But sometimes I find a really cute pink fabric like this animal print, and make one just for a little girl.  I bought this fabric second hand at a big sale, and the four patch blocks came from our guild's silent auction.  I had no idea pink was going to be April's color when I finished this last week.

The back is a pink/lavender print.  I showed this quilt on the blog last Sunday as an example of an easy pattern for Hands 2 Help.

I also showed this one, as a top.  It's now quilted and bound and even washed.

This is another one of my little bricks quilts, made with scraps 2.5 in. x 3.5 in. that I call little bricks.  The "recipe" is on last Sunday's blog, and is very easy.  (Why is there always a headless dinosaur on my quilts?)

The back is this fun circles print, and I went with a green binding.  Both of these quilts will go to the Little Lambs Foundation, as part of Hands 2 Help.

I took these photos on Friday.  Here's what it looked like on Thursday:

Seriously?  What about that thing we learned in elementary school, about March coming in like and lion and going out like a lamb?  Maybe that's not valid in Wisconsin.  At least most of the snow melted away by the next afternoon.

This week was my kindergarten buddy's spring break, and he got to go to the Milwaukee Public Museum to see the T. Rex display.  He was so excited to learn new dino facts.  We had planned to take his little brother too, but my Little Guy had a bad cold, so I stayed home with him.

 We're trying to teach him to wipe his nose, and he's doing pretty well when reminded, but covering his mouth when coughing and sneezing is just beyond him.  I've been thinking a lot about that scene in Jurassic Park when a dinosaur spits poison in a park employee's face.  No surprise, I caught his cold.  I'm resting and drinking lots of tea and water, and hoping to be fine by Monday.

Meanwhile, it's snowing again (!).  Should be a good day to stay inside and quilt.

Here's hoping you're in the pink this week!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Angela at So Scrappy

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Cynthia at Oh Scrap 

 

 

 

Yellow and Blue

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Happy first Saturday in March!

Spring is coming, even here in Wisconsin.  The snow is only in spots at the moment, melting a little in the daytime and refreezing at night, but it's still pretty drab outside.  My new baby quilt finish is providing most of the color in this photo.

It's Hands 2 Help time!  For the last few years, I have participated in this charity quilt drive from March through May.  Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict has been our fearless leader, but due to health concerns her place will be filled this year by Mari of The Academic Quilter (Click HERE to get all the details.)

This little quilt will go to Little Lambs, which provides quilts for kids going into foster care.

The big squares of cat fabric came from my ever-expanding stash of novelty prints.  The 4 patch blocks came from our quilt guild's silent auction last November. 

I hit the jackpot at that auction!  You can see the 4 patch blocks in the foreground of this photo of the amazing loot I brought home.  The blocks were leftovers from a quilt made by one of our guild members.

I had some yellow polka dot in the stash, and we all know polka dots go with everything, so that became the inner border.  The binding is a Laurel Birch print.

Here's the backing--unraveling balls of yarn.  Which sort of goes with the cat theme, right?

So that's one done for H2H 2022.

When I made this top a few weeks ago, I had no idea what the Ukrainian flag looked like.  Now I see blue and yellow everywhere.  It is encouraging to see nearly the whole world united in opposition to the Russian invasion and this terrible war.  I wish I could send quilts (and anything else that would help!) to the people in Ukraine and/or the refugees in neighboring countries, but instead I am sending money to Doctors Without Borders, since I know they will use it well.  A friend where I used to work volunteered with them every year.  Click HERE to see an article about their work in the area.

Yellow is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for March.  I'm glad we have such a bright color this month, we really need it.  I got started on some of my easy blocks, the split nine patches.

These blocks are being made from a box of squares and half square triangles left over from other quilts.

 Somehow, even with the best of intentions, that box of scraps never seems to get emptied.

 I may have figured out why.  I used as many of the squares and hsts as I could, but I did have to cut a few more just so I'd have enough variety.  

But of course I didn't know exactly how many more I would need, so I cut extra.  Now there are MORE leftovers in the box.  At least there are not as many as I started with.

Some of the light pieces for these blocks came from this basket of scraps.  Some of these scraps started out as backing for baby quilts, and some were left over from quilts made by friends.

I pulled out everything I thought might make a 3.5 in. strip, square, or half square triangle.

Then I pressed the whole mess, straightened them up, and started cutting.

There's a nice stack of 3.5 in. strips on the right, and a few 2.5 and 2 in. strips as well.  Wonder how long these will last?  It will be fun to use them up for this year's RSC quilts.

This week in Baby Buddy news:

When I used up my giant roll of batting, I saved the cardboard tube.  Baby Buddy is having fun launching little cars down it.

If they go far, he throws up his hands and cheers!  I'm cheering today, too, because he just turned two!  Not exactly a baby anymore, so he gets a new nickname.  Happy Birthday, Little Guy.

Have a good week, everyone.  And God bless the Ukrainians.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Check out these wonderful linky parties!  These ladies go out of their way to give us a place to show and share our quilts.

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap