Farm Quilt and Green Crumbs

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

The Farm Quilt is a top!  The wind died down enough yesterday afternoon to take a photo outside.

Isn't this farm print fun?  I knew when I picked it up at a quilt guild meeting that it could be a good border.  It came from our guild stash, which is donated to us.  Check out the date:  1999!  With proper storage, good quality cottons can last a long time.

The blue fabric with chickens was also from the guild stash.  I originally wanted to have a narrow border of the blue between the main part of the quilt and the red border.  Unfortunately, when I did the math I didn't have enough of the red for that option, especially if I wanted to show most of the repeat of the farm print.  I will make the binding from the blue.

Here's what I meant about the border repeat.  These borders were cut at 4.5 in. and you still can't see the whole scene.

The framed blocks were cut from several different farm and/animals prints.  I have a bag of farm themed fabrics and scraps that I used to make the 16 patch blocks.  And to no one's surprise, even after all these blocks the bag is STILL not close to being empty. 

 I counted 8 different tractor prints in the bag, both scraps and yardage.  They were mostly John Deere but also International Harvester, and some generic ones like the block above framed in dark green.

The blocks are 8 in. finished, and the top measures 49 in. x 65 in.  It will be donated locally.  I don't plan to quilt it myself as I know others can do a better job.  It will either be quilted by someone in my quilt guild, or by Lynn with the Children's Advocacy Center.

Tomorrow is the last day of February, and that means the last day of green month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I finished these crumb type blocks just in time!  I'm making them from leftover small pieces and strips.  After making a Duckworth quilt as a guild challenge, I've changed how I make this kind of block.  Now I'm working from the center, kind of like a log cabin, instead of a less organized approach.  It's fun to learn new things!

While I had the green crumbs and strips out I made a few more things for an eventual village type wall hanging.  There's a big green house with a Green Bay Packers strip, some green grass for the little blue house, and a couple of trees made from scrap triangles.  I'm not really happy with the big tree, I think it looks less like a tree and more like a big green tent, but it might be better when I add a trunk.

In Progress

New Project Alert!  Multicolored string blocks are under my treadle's needle today.  I went through my bags of strings and pulled out bright strips of all the colors.  I'm sewing them to batting scraps.  This will end up being a quilt for another guild challenge.

Check out this orange strip!  It's from a scrap of Halloween fabric I got from the free table at guild a while back.  The whole verse on the fabric says: 

Trick or Treat

Smell my feet

Give me something good to eat.

Rude, right?  I'm glad the manufacturer didn't include the rest of that rhyme that the kids at school used to say!

Here's a little more green for the last day of green month.  That's me, standing outside our hotel in Arizona in January next to the tallest cactus I have ever seen.

Time to go cut up more batting squares and do something about the scrap pile on the cutting board.

Have a good week, everyone, and happy quilting!

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

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

Orange Houses and Leftovers

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's the last Saturday in May, and that means it's the last week of orange month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Sewing up the orange scraps has been so much fun.  These little houses are my last RSC project.

My very favorite one is this print of Horton the elephant from the Dr. Seuss stories.  Isn't it amazing how many different shades there are of any given color?

Now for the leftovers.  I have to admit, I love leftovers when it comes to food.  My favorite lunch is supper left over from the night before.  I keep a close eye on the leftovers in the refrigerator and try to use them up quickly, but I tend to forget about the quilting leftovers.  They are mostly shoved into a drawer.

This week I opened the drawer.

Right away I found a bag of tumblers left over from several quilts I made years ago.  There were enough lights and darks to make a small quilt top.

I admit, I am not totally thrilled with the color placement, etc.  Maybe I should have mixed things up a bit more.  And if I was making it from scratch, I would have chosen different fabrics.  But the object of this exercise was to use up the leftovers and make a quilt for a child who needs one, so I'm telling my inner critic to chill out.

Snicklefritz has taken on the job of quilt model, so I guess I should give him a raise.  He's showing off the kid friendly prints:  numbers, Clifford, D.W. from Arthur, Curious George's animal friends, dinosaurs, ABCs, and Peter Rabbit.

There were a few tumblers that were still left behind.  I cut them up into useful pieces:  a 2.5 in. square, a 2.5 x 3.5 in. rectangle, and a larger scrap for crumb blocks.  The rest was too small to use, and was tossed.  No guilt!
 

Also in the drawer were some red and white cut pieces given to me by a friend.  They measured 3 in. square, which is not a size I normally use.  (The math is easier if the squares finish at a whole number.  I really need the math to be easy!)  Some were already sewn into sets of two.

I made the squares into four patches, which finished at 5 in.  I had to add in a few of my own reds and whites, and of course the alternate squares and borders.

The blue M&Ms fabric came from a thrift store.  It was a strip about 15 in. wide and 3 yards long, so it must have also been somebody's leftover.  From the campaign hats and only having red and blue M&Ms, I think it's meant to be political, and represents both of our political parties.

This is all I had left!  I cut all the squares on the right to 2.5 in. (like the one on the left) and added them to the rest of the 2.5 in. squares.  These will be put into blocks, for the RSC or other projects.

I'm almost as happy as the little orange frog jumping for joy in this square. While I was working on leftovers I finished my Amanda blocks!

This pattern was just what I like--easy and fun to sew, and uses up scraps.

But now I have a problem.  I tend to cut too many pieces so I can be flexible about colors.  What do I do with these leftover strips?  

It really never ends, does it?  And I guess I'm okay with that.

The Sandhill cranes are back!  I love watching them in the park behind our house.  They are such beautiful, graceful birds.  The weather here has been lovely, a nice beginning to summer.

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead, whatever the weather is like where you live.  Happy Memorial Day weekend to all in the U.S.!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at Super Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

Bricks and Houses and Hands 2 Help

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

This week had me searching high and low in my stash for purple novelty prints to use in my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  I found some!  but I did have to include star prints to make up the numbers.  And there are no less than 3 butterfly prints, plus a caterpillar one.

I love this one!  It's a Kaffe Fassett design, meant to be buttons.

I've had this cat print forever.  The background is an odd color, almost lavender but not quite.

This is one that quilt author Judy Gauthier might call a "husband" print.  She says they're like husbands--you loved them at first sight, you want to keep them, but you don't always understand them or know what to do with them. (Click HERE to go to info about Judy's books and shop.)

A few more houses got cut and sewn from the same fabrics as the bricks.  Dora the Explorer is leading the way.

Here are two little quilts for Hands2Help 2023.  These are the first quilts I've made with the new poly batting.

First, more bricks!  This is another Little Bricks quilt, made with my free (and very easy) pattern.  (Click HERE.)

The poly batting makes it "bouncier" than cotton, and will definitely make it warmer.  I'm still learning how best to baste and quilt it.
 

The back is this rainbow print.

Here's quilt #2.  This pattern is perfect for poly batting.

Long long ago in a state far away (well, not that far, it was Ohio) I took a class with the woman who developed this pattern, the amazing Kaye Wood.  Kaye was a quilting pioneer at the beginning of this current quilt revival, although many quilters now may never have heard of her.  She had one of the first television quilt programs, and traveled the country teaching.  At quilt shows, she would sell her patterns and templates and videos (of course), but she would also set up a huge area with stations for volunteers to sew this pattern for charity from donated fabric and batting.  She called it the Love quilt or the 6 Hour Quilt.  At the end of the show, the quilts made would be donated to local hospitals, etc.  (Click HERE for her video instructions.)

As a teacher, she was down to earth, helpful, and fun.  The workshop was a full day, and I finished a twin sized quilt for my daughter there.  The quilt was used for years and was warm and well loved.  I was very sad to hear of Kaye's death in July 2019. 

 One of the best things about this pattern is this--it's reversible!  Side one of my quilt uses construction/vehicle prints, and side two has a farm theme with cows and chickens, etc.

 The technique is easy, but I had to modify it a little.  Kaye Wood may not need to pin the layers, but I do!  

It has been so warm and nice here this week!  We all went for a walk in the park, and Grandpa and the boys posed on the bench.

The rhubarb is up, a sure sign of warmer days to come.

By Tuesday, it was 75 degrees out, and our little boys were wearing shorts!  Our old dog is so glad to see the this Little Guy every morning.

I hope you're having a wonderful day today and a good week ahead, with time outdoors as weather permits.

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Check out all the lovely and exciting quilts at these linky parties!

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