Hands 2 Help Check In: Two More and One on the Way

Welcome to Treadlestitches! 

 Two more quilts are ready for donation for the Hands 2 Help annual drive.

Here's an I Spy baby/child quilt made from 5 in. squares.

Novelty prints, plus bananas in the border.
 

Next, Hourglass four patch in bright colors.

Mostly NOT novelty prints, except for these cats in the border.

Those are done, and will be going to Project Linus next week.

Next, this one is the one on the way.  I'm layering it up today, and might even get some of the quilting done.

It's a little farm quilt, with lots of cows and chickens and a few sheep.  Oh, and John Deere tractors.

Right now I've got an old Loretta Lynn song going through my head, called One's On the Way. When looking it up this morning, I learned it was written by Shel Silverstein of Where the Sidewalk Ends fame.  Who knew?

I love seeing what everyone is making to help others.

Happy quilting!

Linking up to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

 

For the Love of Orange

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

I'm happy about orange, the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  These are my Happy Blocks, made with orange frames and light centers.  This is the first six ...

and the second six.  I really had to dig to find prints with orange.  There's a big mess in the sewing room for me to clean up this weekend, with scraps and strips and yardage all over the place.

Check out the orange dinos, running across the print.  Hope that T Rex doesn't see them!

For bugs, we've got these creepy critters,
 

plus the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

There are some really cute owl prints now, like this one (which I also used in pink month), and

these chubby little owlets.

I was also able to use some of the scraps given to me by my friend Joey for the frames.  It's fun to cut and organize scraps, especially when you have a project that needs them.  (Thanks again, Joey!)

Remember this Hourglass top?  It was on the blog in early April.  I quilted it last weekend, and orange just seemed like the perfect binding.

The squares are quilted with diagonal lines using the serpentine stitch on my Pfaff.  I marked the lines with a soap sliver, and these photos are before I washed it, so some of the white soap is still visible.
 

This cheeky kitty from the border print says hi!  The quilt will be donated locally, to Project Linus.  A short tutorial on how I make the hourglass blocks can be found HERE.

The weather has been getting warmer at last, and we're spending more time outside.  Or we were, until the boys got strep throat.  Both are on the mend now, thanks to antibiotics.

Our first grade Buddy is very interested in weather, especially tornadoes.  He was thrilled when his mom bought him this shirt, and asked me to take his picture so I could send it to my mom in Oklahoma.  He is so impressed that she lives in Tornado Alley.

So what is this mess?  It's the last of my purple projects.  Thanks to chain piecing, I got the rest of the hsts sewn for the butterfly quilt border.  I want to get that top together this month.

 Happy Cinco de Mayo to all who celebrate, and Happy quilting to everyone!

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 SoScrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap 

 

Two Little Tops

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

 

It's been a busy week here at Treadlestitches.  It's spring break for the grand kids I babysit, so we had lots of fun but the quilting just didn't get done.  I did find time to piece two little tops for Hands2Help, and they'll be quilted soon.  I hope.  The first one is the I Spy quilt above.

I'm trying to use more of my 5 in. strips and squares this year.  Many of them are novelty prints (which I love!) and I Spy is perfect for them.  I chose 48 squares, 6 each of 8 colors, and set them with a colorful dot fabric left over from another quilt.  It was tough finding even six novelty fabrics in orange (do I need to go shopping?) so it was on my mind when I chose the orange solid cornerstones.

The border is this banana print, from 1992!  I found it at a flea market last summer.

My little guys let me interrupt their playing for a photo.

I hope this will be a fun quilt for a child.  It was a blast to make!

So was this one, that I'm calling Hourglass Four Patch.  I tried something new with it.  The hourglass units are made from charm squares.  I wrote up a tutorial for it, click HERE to see it.

For this quilt, I chose mostly saturated colors and just a few novelty prints. 
 

The border is this fabric that I call "Big Kitties".  I was so happy I had enough left of it, after using it in other quilts.  How can you go wrong with purple, orange, red, and green cats?

The grand kids posed with this one, too, but they were getting tired of being models and ready to go back to playing.

I'm so lucky to have such good helpers.  I did get my Buddy to pose one more time.  The thing he's hugging is a giant roll of poly batting.  Wonder how long it will take me to use this up?  Especially since it's one of TWO giant rolls!

I'm experimenting with different ways to use the batting for charity quilts.  It's lightweight, soft, and warm.  

Sorry about all the dark photos, it's been raining here lately and today we've got a little snow, which must be annoying for all the robins that are back.

Have a great week and thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy   The Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for April is purple!!!  Hurray!!!

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Hourglass Four Patch Tutorial

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Here's a quick tutorial for a very easy quilt.

The blocks are made of two hourglass blocks and two plain squares.

To make the hourglass blocks, choose one dark charm square (5 in. x 5 in.) and one light square, same size.

Place the charm squares right sides together.  In this example, I put the light square on top.  Now slice the squares diagonally twice, corner to corner.  When pulled apart they look like this.

Each section is two triangles, right sides together.  Take them to the sewing machine, and stitch from the right angle to the triangle tip.  Make sure to sew all of them exactly the same way, with the light side up.  Here they are, all sewn.

Now open them up.  Gently finger press or iron the seam toward the dark triangle.  Arrange them like the photo below, and pin the center seam.  Then stitch.

 

From two charm squares, you get two identical hourglass units.  These units measure 4 1/4 inches square unfinished.  The edges on the outside of the units are on the straight of grain, which makes them less likely to stretch.
 

 

To make the four patch blocks, I cut two squares 4 1/4 in. from another fabric in the same color family, and sewed them to the hourglass units.  The resulting blocks finished at 7.5 in.

I realize this is an odd measurement.  The hourglass units could be trimmed down to 4 in. easily, which might make them easier to use with other shapes.  If you do that, the hourglass units would be 3.5 in. finished, and the four patch blocks would finish at 7 in. square.

I have never seen this method before, but it's possible somebody else came up with it first.  If you know who that might be, please tell me in the comments, and I'll give them credit.

And of course, if you make a quilt from this tutorial, I would love to see it!

Happy Quilting!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches