DrEAMi Bordered Square, a Heart, and Purple Blocks

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Do you keep a list of quilts you plan to make?  I do.  I even have it written on a whiteboard in my sewing room.  Somehow I never keep to that schedule, because something always comes along to make me drop everything and make it (a condition called DrEAMi that often afflicts quilters). Bordered Square, above, is one of those DrEAMi projects. This top was so much fun to make, it didn't even seem like patch-work.  

The inspiration came from this book, Quilts from the Heart, by Karin Renaud.  I bought it at the Humane Society rummage sale at the end of May.  The book is filled with great ideas, but the Bordered Square pattern sent me straight to my boxes of cut squares to start making blocks.

The blocks are simple to make.  The center is a 4.5 in. cut square, surrounded by 12 squares cut 2.5 in.  All the centers are novelty prints.  The blocks in the book used novelty prints with darker backgrounds.  I used lighter ones instead for more contrast.

I liked the author's use of random bright squares as cornerstones.  Instead of solid white, I used a print for the sashing because it was more fun.  It's a heart print, and I always like to include hearts in the donation quilts I make for kids.

I love having a good pattern and inspiration for a quilt, but also making some small changes to do it my way.  My quilt has 30 blocks instead of 20, and I also skipped the inner border.  I will be donating the top to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.  The organizer will quilt it, and it will be given to a child.

Check out the border!  I got this colorful kitty fabric at the museum sale last month and just loved it.  It seemed perfect for this quilt, but I only had just over half a yard, and I was afraid it wouldn't be enough.  I did the math several times but didn't really trust myself (not a math person sadly).  

It worked!  All I have left of the kitty fabric is one 2.5 in. strip, two 3.5 in. squares, and this heart block I made with the last of it.

Purple blocks were happening here for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I can't wait to see everybody else's blocks in the linky parties.  Here are mine!

Bright Hopes:

And Thrifty:

And my favorite block of the week:

There's a flying girl frog in the center square!  Of course it's my favorite!

The stacks of RSC blocks are getting taller!  I'm looking forward to making them into tops.

In other news, I've been spending lots of time with my youngest grandsons this summer.

They're "helping" me pick black raspberries.  Not much help since they eat all they pick, but it's a great snack for them and something they look forward to.

Buddy and I have been going to the park every morning while Little Guy is at a playground program.  In the photo above, he's testing his American Ninja Warrior skills.

This morning, I'm going to a meeting at the Quilt Museum, so I'd better get going.  Have a lovely week, everyone.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

A Pink UFO, Fan Quilting, and Purple Bow Ties

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

This is my "not-finish" for this week.

It's just a top, but this is a big step for this project.  It's a UFO, started by a nice man who donated TONS of fabrics, tops, blocks, and projects to our quilt guild.

This is what we started with.  The Amazing Colleen from our charity committee handed it off to me (along with other projects that may also get finished eventually).  There were nine blocks and some narrow sashing strips.  The blocks were about 11 inches square.  BTW, that's Lizzy the kitten in the corner of the photo, escaping from being photographed.

After taking off the sashing, I squared up the blocks and added new sashing and borders from this lovely bird print.  My friend Debbie C. spotted a whole bolt of it for me at a sale in Madison last January, and it has really come in handy.

Before I hand this one over to one of our volunteer long arm quilters, I will make a backing from the same bird print, and a binding from a slightly darker pink.

Several times I have mentioned my dislike for pink.  Working on this quilt made me realize it isn't all pinks, just that very pale, sort of salmon shade.  It's not something I would choose for a quilt I'm keeping, but I can work with it for charity stuff.

We had a lovely Independence Day yesterday.  It rained in the morning, but cleared up with a nice breeze.  We went to the parade, which was the familiar and wonderful small town parade with fire engines, pom pom girls, and the high school marching band.  A few politicians were there, but no political floats which was okay with me.  July 4 is a day to remember what we have in common.

Later in the day, I started quilting my Constitution quilt.  I'm doing a Baptist Fan on my domestic machine, which is challenging, mostly because of marking the lines on both light and dark fabrics.

It's purple month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  How are your purples coming along?  With such a busy week I went right for my easiest blocks, the 8 in. Bow Ties.

My favorite is the ghost print one.  The ghosts are reading ghost stories and eating popcorn.  There are more fun purple prints now that purple is seen as a Halloween color.

This fish print had a cute selvedge.  It says, "Make all your rainy day bright!"  I like the sentiment, but I'm not sure about the English used.  Thankfully I'm not the grammar police.  (I leave that to my eldest daughter lol.)

Look who hopped up into the cabinet!  I was cleaning it, and turned my back for a second.  Naughty Snicky!  I didn't fuss at him, though, just laughed and got the camera.  Why do cats always test spaces to see if they can fit?

He definitely fits on Little Guy's lap.  They've been hanging out together more, since Buddy has been at wrestling camp the last 3 weeks.  Buddy will be here starting Monday, and I know Little Guy is glad.  We'll do some fun things together.

One of our daily activities will be picking raspberries in our garden.  This is today's haul, the trickle that starts the flood.  I love this time of year!

I hope you have a lovely week, doing the things you love to do.

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Scrappy Sewing and Summer Memories

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Hello!  Lizzie would like to show you a quilt today.  I think she's gotten jealous of her brother Snicky being The Cat Who Poses on Quilts. 

Our finish is this Bright Hopes quilt.  I showed the top in May, but couldn't quilt it until Mrs. Pfaff came back from the shop.  It measures about 42 in. x 48 in., and will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center for a child to take home.

About 2/3 of the rectangles in the quilt came from a bag of cut pieces donated to our guild by Mr. M, a gentleman who once managed a fabric store.  I supplied the rest from my "collection".  There were so many fun fabrics in the bag, like monkeys, Ritz crackers, parrots, and quite a few shamrocks for St. Patrick's day.

I think Mr. M might be a Cubs fan!  I still have lots of these rectangles left.  

This is the back.  It was not quite wide enough, so I sewed a strip in the middle.

Here's a closeup of the backing.  As you can see, I quilted a simple 2 in. grid over the blocks.  Take a look at the print.  Notice anything odd about the clothes on the line?

I bought the backing fabric second hand.  It just looked like clothes hanging on the clothesline to me until I looked at the selvedge, and saw the name.  Winter Gnomes?  Oh, the red things are gnome hats!  I didn't even notice before, just thought these were cute clothes.  I love fun fabrics like this.

June is almost over!  I had a little panic over that, and even though it was a busy week made time to finish my orange blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Thank goodness these Radio Windmill blocks are fast and easy.

Favorite blocks!

Orange monkey!

And whatever this is!  Maybe an orange bear?  From a cartoon?  You never know what you're going to find when buying second hand fabric.

Thank goodness I finished the Sisters Choice blocks last weekend.  Now I can start July all caught up.  Our color for July is PURPLE!  My favorite color!

My favorite block from this set uses some of the Halloween squares I got at the last guild meeting.

There goes Little Guy, driving again.  This time he's part of a program called Safety Town.  They learn about how to be safe in cars, on the bus, at the pool, etc.  They have fun field trips to the fire station and a vet's office and the police station.

Yesterday he graduated from the program.  His big Buddy was proud of him.  So were we!

I took a photo of this banner at the school where Safety Town is held.  Isn't it great?

Thursday morning while the boys were at their activities I picked strawberries at the local U Pick place.  Such a delicious part of summer!  I need to start taking the boys with me to pick, even though I know we won't get as much done.  It's good for kids to know where food comes from, and I have lots of good memories of picking with family.  

Do you have good summer memories?  I hope so.  And good winter ones too!  Have a wonderful week, everyone, and Happy Independence Day to all in the U.S.A.

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

Lap Quilts, Orange Scraps, and the Big Sale

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

It's two for the price of one today!  These little lap quilts are ready to be donated to a local nursing home.  They are twins, made from the same blocks and the same scrap bags.  I call them fraternal twins since the colors are opposite.

The block is rectangular.  I got this idea from Cynthia at Oh Scrap.  Each block is just one square and one rectangle.  The squares were cut 4 in., and were in a bag of scraps donated to our guild.  The rectangles came from a similar bag, and were originally 2.5 x 4.5, but I cut them down to 2.5 x 4 to match the squares.  There were only a few squares of this farm animal print.  Isn't it sweet?

Quilt A (above) is made from dark squares and light rectangles, all from the scrap bags.

Quilt B is made from light squares and dark rectangles.  I had plenty of rectangles from the scrap bag, but I did have to add in some light squares cut from my scraps.  The border, backing, and binding are the same on both quilts, and came from my stash.

The cat in this square reminds me of Little Lizzy, our shy kitten.  She's shy around people, but goes chasing through the house with her big brother Snicky.

Speaking of Snicklefritz,  our Little Guy asked me to take this picture with him.  Little Guy loves Snicky, but we are still working on teaching him that cats don't like hugs.

Quilt guild meeting was last Wednesday, and I picked up a few more scraps from the free table.  The squares in front are Halloween prints.  I love the ones with black cats!  In the back are squares and rectangles made from strips.  Lots of great orange variety!

Time has been short this week, but I was able to use my orange scraps to make some hearts for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

As always, some are more successful than others, but all will be put to good use in kid quilts.

I have two favorites this week!  Birthday candles and monkeys, and two Dr. Seuss prints!

Sometimes people ask me where I get all these novelty prints.  One answer is the big sale at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts, which happened on Thursday.  It's always a highlight of the summer for me.  Above is the flannel I bought, some novelties and some "calmer" fabrics as blenders.

Here's the rest of it, the quilting cottons, plus a Sock Monkey panel.

I like these cat and dog prints best!  I can't wait to start sewing with them.

Also, lots of scraps!  They had a scrap section outside, where you could fill a bag for a set price.  I filled a kitchen trash bag for $5.

I always think of this sale as a Win-Win-Win-Win-Win.  The museum wins by raising money, and those of us who donate fabric etc. win by cleaning out our stuff.  Shoppers like me win by saving money.  The charities I give quilts to win, and the last win is keeping fabric and scraps out of the landfill.  Plus it's so much fun!

As of this writing, all the new-to-me fabric has been washed and put away.  I must admit, some of the bins are pretty full!  (I will not be buying any more flannel for a long time.)  Everything I bought will either be useful for the quilts I sew, or will be passed on to others.

It's a lovely summer day here, but a heat wave is forecast for the whole weekend.  Perfect weather for sewing in the air conditioning!  But isn't it always perfect weather for sewing?  Have a wonderful week!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Cynthia at Oh Scrap