Meowsers! More Cats!

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Saturday, everyone!  For the first time in weeks, I have an actual finish, quilted and bound and everything.  It's amazing what you can do when the kids go back to school.

When I was working on last week's cat quilt top I went through my stash looking for cat prints to use as borders or backing.  It may not surprise you that I found a lot!  The sizes ranged from 2-3 yards down to squares and strips.

The squares made me think of this quilt that I saw at the Winter Quilt Show in February.  Before I could stop myself I was cutting up squares and strips to make my own version.

The squares are charm squares, 5 in. x 5 in. cut.  Of the 63 squares, 23 are different cat prints and 4 are "cat-adjacent", meaning paw prints mostly.  Two of the prints feature dogs and cats.  The strips between the squares are cut 2 in. x 5 in.  There are 63 of the strips also.  (Don't you love that cat relaxing on a pile of quilts?)

I included Hello Kitty, even though I know she's supposed to be a little girl dressed up like a cat.

This is an easy quilt to make.  The biggest challenge was keeping the one way prints right side up.  By the way, the yellow square above is another "cat-adjacent" print, with things cats like such as yarn and fish bowls.

I forgot to include the border and backing when I counted the cat prints!  So there are 25 different prints with cats in the quilt.  Check out the cat sewing!  I need to teach Snicky to sew.  Maybe he could do the bindings.

Here's the backing.  I found it at a local quilt shop on the clearance rack for 40% off!!!

I think this pattern would work well for other kinds of novelty fabrics or for I Spy quilts.  Right now I'm thinking about making one with animals (zoo animals, farm animals, all kinds!), maybe book characters if I can find enough, vehicles like cars and trucks, etc.

The finished quilt measures 42 in. x 51 in., and will be donated locally.

Wow, it's already the last Saturday in August!  Even with having extra time, I had to finish these yellow crumb blocks this morning for my last set of Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  Can you guess which one is my favorite?

The one with Elmo, of course!

September's color is purple, which is my very favorite!  I can't wait to pull out the purple scraps and get going.

School just started, and our Buddy has already been in a cross country tournament.  He's on the JV team for his school, and did very well.  Little Guy and I cheered him on at the finish line.

I hope someone is cheering you on for the amazing things you do.  Have a wonderful week, and happy quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

As usual, I'm linking up with these great linky parties.  Come join us!

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Home Is Where The Cats Are

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

How has your summer been?  I can't believe it's nearly over!  I've been traveling a lot this summer, and I'm glad to be home again.  I am grateful for all the time with family and will cherish the memories, but it's so good to be back into my usual routines.  Like making quilts!

The top above evolved from leftover cat blocks made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2024.  As you can see, I added borders to the blocks, and set them together with a cat print border.  There are all sorts of odd fabrics here, like the black Harry Potter symbol cat with a background of a spectacled cat next to the Eifel Tower.

Here's a block with Laurel Burch print dogs and a light cat print background.

More cute kitties in the border!  I love their rainbow accessories.

After adding the border, the blocks measure 9 in. finished, and the quilt is 42 in. x 51 in.  I might quilt it myself if I get time, or I will donate it as a top to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

What about my real cats?  I missed these critters!

I couldn't get Snicky to pose on the quilt.  Guess he was just too comfortable on the carpet.

Lizzy was relaxing on the couch with a different quilt.  Running around the house at five o'clock in the morning wears them out.  For a little while.

Now that I'm home, I'm catching up on my yellow Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for August.  Quarter Log Cabins are quick and easy, thank goodness.  The one in the upper left was a test block, you may have seen it before.  Lots of bright yellows here, with bugs and hearts and Dr. Seuss characters.  And Elmo!

More Elmo, two different prints!  More bugs, too.  Plus Thomas the Tank Engine, and dogs.

I saved my soft yellows for the last block.  There are teddy bears, Peter Rabbit, zoo animals, and a sweet dog.

Next I made two Dawn Chorus blocks.  I only need two for the quilt I'm planning so it didn't take too long.

Here's the other one.  Now I only need to make 3 purple blocks before I can start setting them together.

I missed these guys, too!  They were really hamming it up when we went to Bookworm Gardens in Sheboygan, Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago.  It was a great day, perfect weather and so many book-related things to see.  Just the thing for a retired school librarian like me!

So was this!  I am posing with the Cat in the Hat at the Hartford, Connecticut airport last Monday.  The Dr. Seuss characters are there to promote The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts.  I wish I had had time to go there!

I hope you have time this week to do the things you love to do.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these great linky parties!  Click to see all the eye candy!

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Criss Cross Stars and Yellow Blocks

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

In spite of getting distracted by my Kid Stuff quilt, I did finally finish the Criss Cross Stars top!  Must be because we stayed home all week.  I had to hang it sideways on the clothesline so it wouldn't drag on the ground.

Criss Cross Stars is a pattern by Lori Holt.  I started watching her YouTube videos last winter/spring and really loved them.  (Click HERE for Criss Cross Stars.)  Ms. Holt uses fabric she designs herself, but of course I used my bright kid-friendly prints.  For the centers, I chose either multicolored prints or multicolors on black.  This one is a Laurel Burch print of horses.

This is one of the black ones.  My backgrounds are scrappy.  With as much fabric as I have, I wasn't going to buy any more just to have enough for all the squares to be the same! (I probably will at some point, of course lol.)  The star points are made from 2.5 in. squares from my parts department.

I love this center square!  I bought a small scrap bundle at a quilt shop in Edinburgh last September and a tiny bit of this fabric was in it.  Happy, colorful elephants!  What's not to love?

 

Here's the border.   It looks blue in the photos, but it's actually a bluish purple.

The quilt measures 52 in. x 70 in., and will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center to be quilted and given to a child in foster care.

It's yellow month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  I love yellow.  It adds so much spark to a quilt, and goes with almost anything.  First up are my Greek Cross blocks.

I have all sorts of yellow scraps.  Some a bright as day, like the ones in this block.

Others are quieter.  Don't wake the sleepy little bear!

I didn't get any yellow blocks done for the first yellow Saturday, so I'm doing double time this week to catch up with these Whirligig blocks.  They are probably the quickest to cut and sew of any of my RSC blocks.

This soft print has characters from the Little Golden books.  I remember my Mom reading them to my brother and sister and me, especially the Poky Little Puppy and the Saggy Baggy Elephant.

In Progress

Now that I'm all caught up I can get to work on a UFO.  Back in 2024 I made STACKS of cat blocks.  After finishing several small quilts, I still had 21 blocks left over.  This project will use up 20 of those blocks in a small quilt, which I will quilt and donate to the GSAFE auction at the end of October.  I'm adding frames to bring them up to 9 in. finished.  All the frames were cut yesterday, so I'm ready to go.

For leaders and enders I'm sewing 2.5 in. squares into "twosies" and will then sew the twosies into four patches.  I need 96 four patches so it will be a while before they're done.  This basket had over 200 squares in it when I started.  Looks like I need to load it up again from the parts department.

No pictures of the grandkids this week.  Their dad was off work so they went fishing, etc., and I didn't babysit much.  (Could that be another reason I got some things done?)

Both boys would like to recommend this book that we borrowed from the library.  It is tough to find anything a 6 year old and a 10 year agree on, so I thought I'd pass it on.  Steve (the rubber ducky) and his friend Hank (a plastic dinosaur) are hiding in the puzzles on the pages.  Hank is VERY easy to find.  Steve just gets harder and harder to spot as the book goes along.  More of a puzzle book than a reading book, but challenging (even for adults!) and fun.

No blog next week!  I will be out of town, but I'm NOT going to another funeral (thank goodness!), just a big family reunion.  I may even visit a quilt shop.

Have a great week!  Or two!  Happy quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these kind ladies:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Kid Stuff and Bright Blocks on a Rainy Morning

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

This quilt was supposed to be the leaders and enders project while I worked on Criss Cross Stars.  It just took over.  Does this ever happen to you?  (If it looks like I shaded the blocks from dark to light it's just because it's a dark day and the light in this room is uneven.)

The pattern is simple.  It comes from the book Scrap Basket Surprises by Kim Brackett.  She calls it "Feedsacks" because she used 1930s reproduction fabrics to make hers.  I call my version Kid Stuff because so many of the fabrics are kid-friendly prints.

It might have a random look, but I can't do random (and I have tried!).  Each block has 8 long rectangles around a jelly bean print square.  I used 8 colors, one for each long rectangle (red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, light blue, dark blue, and purple).  There are also 4 short rectangles.  I chose them after I laid out the rest of the block.

The border is this triangles print.  It looks a little wild on its own, but calm next to the blocks!

Kid Stuff finishes at 54 in. x 68 in., and will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center to be quilted and given to a child in foster care.

My blocks for Many Hands Many Hearts are done, and will go in the mail this week.  Above are the red/green ones...

then the orange and blue ones (love this combination!)...

and lastly the purple and yellow ones.  I definitely need more (and better!) yellows.  I'll dig around in the scraps and see what I can find this month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Speaking of purple, I guessed wrong on August's RSC color and made these crumb blocks as leaders and enders while setting the Kid Stuff top together.  Oops!  Never mind, I'll just save them for September and get started on yellow ones.

We are having an amazing summer!  We spent two days at a campground in central Wisconsin, and I just finally got all the laundry done!  Some of my favorite guys rode around on this golf cart.

Our two teenaged grand kids (Mr. H and Miss E) had fun on this crazy see saw at the playground.

When we got back home, Little Guy posed for me on the slide in the park near our house.  This summer will soon be over!  But we will try to make every minute count until then. 

I hope you're enjoying the season, whatever it is.  Happy Quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge