Working on the UnFinished Objects

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Quick note!  The GSAFE Auction of Quilts and Fiber Arts is live online now through Dec. 3.  Proceeds from the auction go to support programs for Gay and Trans students and their families and educators.  Click HERE to view.  (Three of my quilts are in the auction!)

No outside photos today, it's 12 degrees F and a few snow flurries are drifting down, and I'm too lazy to put on all my cold weather gear.  So here's a little "tropical beach" quilt to help warm us up.

It's a UFO, but not my UFO.  I honestly like finishing other people's UFOs, especially if I think they can be useful and fun for kids.

These sharks are having a great day at the beach.  They've got cans of cola, suntan oil, sunglasses, and a boom box for beach tunes to swim by, all on a pink background.  Truly a one-of-a-kind fabric.

I received this quilt as a top, which was donated to our quilt group.  The Amazing Colleen brought it over, and said she thought of me when she saw it.  Wonder why? LOL.  I quilted and bound it last weekend.  

I had this fabric in my stash, an Alexander Henry print copyright 1998.  Proof that good fabric, properly stored, doesn't necessarily have an expiration date.  It's called "Can You Say Snorkel?".

I love all these child-like drawings of sea creatures, and especially the kids.  As you can see, I quilted it with wavy lines to mimic the waves of the ocean, using a stencil.  The quilt will be donated locally.

If it's just cut pieces, is it a UFO?  Or does it count as scraps or something?  These blocks were started from a bag of 2.5 in. x 4.5 in. rectangles also donated to us.  I cut background pieces and additional rectangles from my stash to make 20 blocks.

Yesterday, after the mad rush of baking and cooking for Thanksgiving and the lovely holiday was over, I sewed up the blocks. Many of the 2.5 in. x 4.5 in. darker rectangles are Hot Wheels prints which I'm guessing some kid will love.  I'm looking forward to putting these together. 

As it turns out, cleaning out my sewing room closet has consequences.  I "rediscovered" a whole pile of UFOs I had conveniently forgotten about or just set aside for "later".  Well, it's definitely later, so I'm working on them.

This twin-sized top just needed borders.  Quick fix, right?  Except I had forgotten I only had enough of the brown plaid fabric for 3 of the 4 sides.  I guess I was waiting to find another fabric?  I went through my stash and didn't find anything I loved, so in the end I decided to do this:

The brown plaid on the right of the photo is my original choice, and is on three sides of the quilt.  The other brown plaid is just on one end.  The fabrics in the quilt are mostly 1800s reproductions, and this is a very 1800s solution, so I'm happy with it.  I am donating this top, and it will be quilted by the charity committee volunteers.

It was fun to sew these blocks from my repro pieces!  I have lots more BTW.

It feels good to get some of these older projects off my list!  

What a grumpy face!  My grandson Buddy created this out of bananas and blueberries early this week, and asked me to take its picture.  Before he could decide on a name for it, it was all gone.  

There were 13 of us at Thanksgiving this year, and I am so thankful we were all able to be together.

We had a new member of the family at the feast!  This is Finn, and he's about 5 weeks old.  My daughter adopted him only two days before Thanksgiving and he was too little to leave at home.  I took this picture after he ran all around the house, ate some turkey, had some special kitten milk, and just fell asleep in the middle of the floor.  Snicky was not amused.  The rest of us think he's adorable.

I hope all who celebrated had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'm wishing everyone a great week ahead.  Thanks so much for reading this!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

 

Windmills, Strings, and Grocery Chains

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  How are your projects coming along?

Our vacation in Vienna, Austria, was wonderful (a few photos below) but as always I'm glad to come back to my quiet regular life.   That includes quilting, of course!

I made this little Windmill quilt before we left, from a pattern shared at our quilt group by our Block of the Month leader Nancy Queen of Scraps.  It's an easy pattern using 2.5 in. x 4.5 in. rectangles in light and dark to make 8 in. finished blocks.

The border is an aqua print (last month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color!) printed with colorful and probably fanciful poison dart frogs.  I bought several frog print remnants at a yard sale last year, no idea what the lady was making with it.

What about this wild print on the back?  It was also a second hand purchase, this time at the big museum sale I'm always talking about.  I get a big chunk of the fabric I use for kid quilts from that sale every year.

There are even a few orange blocks in the little quilt for this month's RSC color.

I really love orange!  Pulling out the big chunks of orange scraps is as far as I've gotten on August's color, but I'm looking forward to getting started.

Meanwhile, I've got some of last month's aqua blocks to finish up, like these string blocks.  I'll probably make some more since I have lots of strings to use up.

Oops!  Two of last month's grocery chain strips are pretty short.  I make them by sewing small scraps on receipts from the grocery store.  We were stocked up pretty well in July plus I bought veggies from the farmer's market, and then we were out of town, so I didn't buy as much.

Here's a little orange, from a garden in Vienna.  All these lovely flowers were surrounding a fountain near the natural history museum.

So that's the segue into a few vacation photos! 

We stayed in the city center of Vienna, near St. Stephen's Cathedral, which was begun around 1160 a.d.  The roof tiles are hexagons, which as a quilter I enjoyed very much. 

This is the view outside our hotel window.  The architecture in this part of Vienna is just stunning.  Even ordinary shops or offices might have statues and gargoyles if they're in an old building.  I admit to doing a lot of gaping and pointing.

We did most of our sightseeing in museums.  I'll add a few other pictures in later posts.

Isn't this adorable?  These mosaic designs were made by children with the help of the Kiwanis Club of Vienna.  We happened upon this in Stadt Park, the main city park.  All four sides of this column are covered with the mosaics.  It makes me think of how important all kinds of artistic expression are to all of us humans, young and old and in between.

Look what I found in our park here in Wisconsin!  I took this photo of the boys before we left.  We've been having fun outside in the good weather.  Can't wait to see them again on Monday!

Good luck with orange this month if you are participating in the RSC!  I hope all your projects are going smoothly.  And if not, put them in time out and do something fun!  Have a great week!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy