Flannel Palooza Begins!

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

It's time for Flannel Palooza, my name for making flannel quilts for charity in the cold months.

Once fall really arrives I start thinking about flannel quilts.  When it's warm out the flannel strips and squares and yardage stay in their bins, but cold weather makes me appreciate this warm cozy fabric.  Before starting anything new, I quilted this top I made almost exactly a year ago.

The pattern is Rail Stepper, a free pattern from Alycia Quilts.  (Click HERE for the tutorial.)  It's a variation on a Rail Fence, and very easy to cut and sew.

All the pieces are cut 3.5 in. wide, which keeps things simple.  I like how the longer rectangle (the light fabric with alphabet letters) chains across the quilt.

It's always fun using my novelty prints.  (If you've read this blog before, you know how obsessed I am about cute prints!)  We've got everything here from dogs and cats and robots and spaceships to flying pigs.  Even pineapples!

Here's the back, a dog print I picked up at a big second hand fabric sale a couple of years ago.  The binding is a blue solid.  The quilting is not fancy, but sturdy at least.

This quilt will be donated locally.  I'm not sure if it's going to the Children's Advocacy Center or to the Community Baby Shower in January.

Speaking of flannel, this is the box of flannel scraps I won at the guild silent auction last month.  I finally had some time to work on it last Sunday. 

The dinosaur fabric on top was what drew me to the box.  Looking through it, I'm sure some of the  scraps were left over from making pajamas.  There was even a cut out pajama leg in the dinosaur fabric.

I'm not done yet, but this is what's left in the box this morning; mostly lights with a few scraps of darks.  So what happened to the rest of it?  You guessed it, I've been cutting out kits.

I think of working with these scraps like a quilter's version of the folktale Stone Soup.  I'm starting with what's in the box, and adding in whatever is needed from my Parts Department or yardage.

#1 First I cut out 5 in. squares for a blue Trip Around the World including the dinosaur fabric.  I had some unexpected time off from babysitting one day and sewed it together.  All the blue squares except the center and the four corners came from the box.  All the light squares came from my stash.  It's spray basted and ready to be quilted (this weekend?).

#2 Next I made this kit, also with the dinosaur fabric.  I had just enough for 18 squares, 4.5 in. cut. The white strips were cut out of my flannel yardage.  Since the kits might not get made right away, I'm making the first block or blocks to go in the bag with the pieces, along with a note to jog my memory.

The 272 squares I need for the 16 patch blocks are in this basket.  Some are from the box, some from squares and strips I had on hand.  As you can see, I've started piecing this one.

#3  Sticks and Stones is a pattern by Bonnie Hunter that I have used several times.  It used to be available free online, but I don't know what happened to it.  I made a pink one last year and a Christmas one back in 2017.  No dino fabric in this one sadly but almost all the big squares are cut from pieces in the box.

#4  It's another Rail Stepper! The long rail is from my yardage.  Most of the short rails are from the box.  And there will be dinosaur fabric in this one.

I think I can get one more kit out of what's left.  Anything after that will be cut up and added to the Flannel Parts Department.

Last Saturday DH and I went with our oldest daughter's family to Keys to Kenosha, an event where anyone could visit a long list of Kenosha public and private buildings.  This is my daughter and her children Miss E and Mr. H in the 1920s Kenosha Court House.  We also went to Miss E's school (built in the 1920s also), two older hotels, another 1920s era school no longer in use, and an historic cemetery.

Miss E is seen here pretending to be locked in a classroom.  We had a great day.

I'm not sure why Buddy wanted to pose with the pumpkins but I take every chance I can to get a picture.  And yes, he's wearing shorts when it's cold outside.  A true Wisconsin boy, he says he'll wear shorts as long as he can.  I'm guessing he'll stop when it starts snowing. (?)

 

Our Christmas cactus is blooming!  It's always a joy to see this happen every year. 

And it's a joy to see all the great quilt blogs on the link ups each week!  I am so inspired by the amazing quilts and I love to read about the projects in progress.  Check them out below!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

At the Crossroads, Potato Chips, and Ladders

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Here's the Arkansas Crossroads top on the clothesline this afternoon, shortly after I got the borders on.  I had to turn it sideways to keep it off the ground.  That light fabric with blue dots really stands out, doesn't it?  Maybe not the best choice.  I do like it better up close though.

I had to put Snicky in the basement to keep him from pouncing on the quilt top.  He was kind of a wild kitty today.  

 

I had so much fun choosing squares for this quilt!  Nearly all of them came from my 2.5 in. squares box in my Parts Department.  Some were given to me, some came from scrap bags on the Free Table at guild meetings, some came from my own scraps, and some came from scraps I actually bought.  Check out R2D2, pumpkins, an apple pie, a kitten's face, etc.

This one has dogs, cats, Sally from Peanuts, Scooby-Doo, buttons, and more.

This is the border.  This yardage was one of my "winnings" at the quilt guild silent auction last month.  Can you see the date in the selvedge?  Where were you in 2002 lol?  It really doesn't seem like 24 years ago.  It's like I always say, if good quality fabric is stored well it will be useful for decades.

Oh, dear! Dealing with small squares and novelty prints means one always ends up with headless dinosaurs.

Now for the statistics!  There are 576 2.5 in. squares used in the blocks, both in the four patches and the triangle corners on the light squares.  I did not cut ANY squares specifically for this quilt.  I used what was already cut.  When I worked on other projects and had leftover 2.5 in. squares, I tossed them into the basket next to the sewing machine and added them in.  There are also 96 light squares, the ones with the big blue dots, cut 4.5 in. square.

This is the box of 2.5 in. squares now.  The squares on the left are all the colored prints.  The ones on the right are the light ones, not used for this project, sorted by how many I have of each.  There are also solid colored squares, and a few hsts.  Over 500 squares gone doesn't seem to have emptied the box much, does it?

I changed my quilt slightly from the pattern I found in the book Quilts from the Heart, by Karin Renaud.  She used 2 in. cut squares instead of the 2.5 I used, which makes mine larger than the one in the book.  I also only used one border, but cut it 5 in. wide.  In the end, my top measures approximately 57 in. x 73 in.

It will be donated locally to a child in need.

Oops, I did it AGAIN!  The potato chip blocks were supposed to be my leaders and enders for the next couple of quilts, but I just couldn't stop making them.  Now I have a batch of 30.  This project used 30 3.5 in. squares for the centers and a whopping 480 skinny brick pieces (skinny bricks is my name for the 2 in. x 3.5 in. rectangles by the way) for the rest of the block.  I did have to cut a few skinny bricks to have enough of a few colors (red, green, and yellow) and some lights, but the rest came from the box.  So now what do I do about leaders and enders?

This is what!  There are still lots of skinny bricks in the box!  I'm making what I call Ladders blocks, which use 4 of the rectangles sewn together like this, plus two matching strips cut 2 in. wide on each side.  These will be 6 in. finished blocks.  I will probably use a solid fabric for the side strips, but I'll decide on the color after I get a few more made.  It's a quilt I've made a couple of times before.  If I can keep myself from setting aside the main project to make the Ladder blocks (!),  I can use them as I tackle more of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge block sets in the Some Assembly Required box.

Buddy and Little Guy (or should I say Mario and Luigi) had a great Halloween.  Their mom took this photo just as they were setting out for Trick or Treat last Saturday.  When they came back, those bags were FULL!  Then they helped hand out our candy to the Trick or Treaters in our neighborhood.  At the end of the evening, the firetruck came down the street and a fireman gave everybody candy.

The trees in the park have been amazing!  I wanted to get a few pictures before all the leaves are gone.  There was this lovely yellow one, and ...

a gorgeous fiery red one.

We have also had some rain early in the week and lots of these fungi were popping up.  I had never seen any like this before.

It's hard to believe we're already in November!  

All in all, I have had a wonderful week.  I hope you have, too.  Happy Quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

Halloween Sweet Treats and Arkansas Crossroads

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Halloween!

I put the binding on this little Sweet Treats quilt less than an hour ago!  This week has been a busy one for sure.

Lots of fun Halloween prints make these little candy blocks.  I knew it was a good pattern when my husband saw the blocks and said they looked like candy.  He is a dear man, but NOT clued in to quilts, so if he can see it kids will too.

Three of the block centers were charm squares I hadn't got around to using.  I cut them down to 4.5 in. and recruited another orange Halloween fabric to be the corner triangles.

I did my usual grid quilting with a serpentine stitch.

The back is this wild rick rack style print.  It was the perfect size, with a couple of skinny strips left over.  The binding is a black Halloween print with yellow bats and stars.  It was already made into binding when I bought it in a box of scraps.

Blue Halloween fabric was new to me!  My friend Joey sent me two fat quarters of this cute print.  

I like this pattern so much I'm planning a Rainbow Scrap Challenge print from the Sweet Treats block for next year.  I may actually get ahead of schedule for a change!  If you'd like to see the free online tutorial from polkadotchair.com, click HERE.

Ever since I bought this book, Quilts From the Heart by Karin Renaud, at a community wide rummage sale, I have wanted to make the cover quilt, which she calls Arkansas Crossroads.  So now I'm doing it!

This project started out as leaders and enders, which happens to me all the time.  The scraps are all from my 2.5 in. squares box.  The background fabric with the blue dots is a vintage print I found in an antique mall.  I made a total of 96 four patches and 96 of the squares with the triangle corners. Then I made those into 48 of these  8 in. finished blocks above.

Finally I'm combining them into 12 of these big (16 in. finished) blocks!  Lots of intersections to pin, so slower going.  And of course I had to find another leaders and enders project.  This cycle can go on forever!

Did something horrifying happen to Buddy's fingers?  (Or are those just the big raspberries that have been on sale at the grocery store?)

Oh, no, it must be contagious!  It happened to Little Guy too!  These kids crack me up.  Don't worry, the raspberries were definitely eaten and order restored.

We are still having good weather here at the very end of October, which is unusual, but a cold snap is expected soon.  Meanwhile, we have beautiful scenery and gorgeous leaf colors to enjoy when walking in the park.

Have a wonderful and safe Halloween, and a good week ahead doing things you love.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these awesome quilters:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Log Cabin, Stash Building, and Scraps

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

My quilt tops are getting too big to go on the clothesline for photos, but the breeze this morning worked against a good picture in the tree, sorry.  The charities I donate the tops to prefer larger sizes for the kids and I'm happy to oblige, especially since a volunteer from the organization will quilt them.

It's breeze-free in the house, laid out on the floor.  These blocks were one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge sets from this year.

I was calling these blocks Half Log Cabin, but they might more properly be called Quarter Log Cabin.  Each one is made from one 3 in. (finished) square and three sets of 2 in. wide (finished) strips.  Easy peasy!  And it used up strips from my Parts Department.

Did you catch the Halloween prints in the blocks above?  I wasn't trying to be timely when I made them, it was just hard to find good novelty prints in purple and orange.  I've since found more orange, but purple is still harder to spot in the stores.

As usual, this quilt top will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee, to be given to a child in foster care.

This week was a BIG DEAL for stash enhancement!  On Monday I met my friend Debbie C. in Sun Prairie at J. J. Stitches quilt shop.  We shopped for fabric, and had lunch out.   I bought dog prints and several light fabrics.  The best part, as always, was visiting with a friend.  We were too busy talking to take pictures, sadly.  We both admired the quilt above so I'm including a photo of it from their web site.  Great purple fabrics!

On the way home, I stopped at Sew Many Pieces in Richfield.  Of course I bought sale fabric (it was $10 per yard, which seems cheap now when fabric goes for $15 or even $16 a yard).  I also bought these scraps.  They have a big basket full, and customers like me fill a plastic bag for $7.00.

Here's what I ended up with after I cut it up. There are small stacks of squares in 5 in., 4.5 in., 3.5 in., 2.5 in. and 2 in. sizes.  Then there are 3 kinds of rectangles:  2 in. x 3.5 in., 2.5 in. x 3.5 in., and 2.5 in. x 4.5 in.  These are all the shapes I keep in my Parts Department, which makes them ready to go when I need them.  The odd shaped pieces in front are scraps for more crumb quilts.

When I went to put all the cut pieces away, I found that the shoebox with the 2 in. x 3.5 in. rectangles was getting really crowded.  I could get a bigger bin, or I could start a new quilt.  Which do you think I did lol?

Of course I started a new quilt!  The block is a Potato Chip variation, with a center 3 in. (finished) square instead of two rectangles.  Each 9 in. finished block will use 6 light rectangles and 10 dark ones. I don't think I have enough rectangles right now to make a twin sized top, but I'm sure more of these scraps will show up over time.  Scraps are forever!

Quilt Guild meeting last Wednesday night was our annual Silent Auction.  This is always so much fun!  This box of flannel scraps was calling my name.  I tried not to listen, but it was no use.  This is what it looks like now, after I weeded out fabrics I won't use and washed the rest.  There is so much cutting in my future!  If you have any good simple patterns for flannel, I would love a link to them.  I'm going to start with baby quilts.

The Silent Auction went really well.   Our guild raised over $400.00!  I was happy to help.  All told, I bought 6 lots, including the charm squares above and the jar of candy, which came with several yards of cute kid fabric.  (The jar was full when I won it.)

Question for you.  Do you keep your charm squares in their original packs, or do you sort them by color?  I'm always interested in how other quilters work.

It's a beautiful day here, and I'm going to take a walk in the park after lunch.  I hope you have a lovely productive week, doing what you love best.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these fun ladies and their blogs:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap