More Pink, and More Little Bricks

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

First, more little bricks, those 2.5 in. x 3.5 in. rectangles!  Here's another pattern that's easy and fun for using up all these little scraps.  This child's quilt uses 168 of them, in matching sets of two.

The colors are a bit brighter outside, but then you have my shadow taking the photo!

It was fun pairing up the scraps.  Dogs and cats and crayons and dinosaurs, oh my!  The Paw Patrol border was a find at a sale.  I hope kids still like Paw Patrol.

Sponge Bob is waving hello!

The blocks are 6 in. finished, and the quilt measures 44 in. x 50 in.  It will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

I first saw this block in the book Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott.  They call it Sparkling Gemstones, which is a good title since all their small pieces are Kaffe Fassett prints.  The directions were for strip piecing, but I wanted to use my scraps, so I adjusted it.  

To make one block, cut two pairs of little bricks 2.5 in. x 3.5 in., and sew into a four patch.  Cut two white (or other color) rectangles 1.5 in. x 6.5 in., and add to either the sides or the top and bottom.  Couldn't be simpler!  Set them alternating the orientation, just like a rail fence.

The back is this print of kids at a playground.  I bought it second hand from from someone selling their mother's stash at the Winter Quilt Show.  It wasn't quite wide enough, so I added a strip of red solid through the middle.

Pink:  In Progress

Pink month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is rushing by, so fast I can hardly keep up!  I got all the blocks done for this Sticks and Stones quilt, but didn't have time to add the borders.  Maybe later today?

I thought you might like to see the Christmas quilt I made in this pattern a few years ago.  This is my grandson Buddy, rolled up in the top before I quilted it.  It has been a while, he'll be 10 years old next month!  

I made some changes this time, widening the light strips to 2 in. cut and making all 4 squares in the block match.

More pink progress!  I have more pink scraps than I thought.  So of course I have to start another quilt!  The pattern is Happy Blocks, one my old favorites.  This one uses 5 in. squares and 2 in. strips.  I'm making half of the blocks with dark strips and light centers, and the other half opposite.  And this is the last pink project this month.  (Probably?)

Easter at our daughter's house was wonderful.  All five of the grandchildren are gathered here, waiting to start the Easter egg hunt.  The teenagers were a little reluctant, but I think they had a good time anyway.

The youngest grandsons had one more day of Spring Break on Monday, so their mom and I took them to a local gymnastics center for a couple hours of fun and exercise.  Buddy, above, is getting ready to run down the ramp and jump in a foam pit.

Please pardon this blurry photo of Little Guy, he was jumping too fast for the camera.

Buddy even did stunts going down the bouncy slide.  It looked like great fun. Sadly, adults were not allowed on the equipment.

The kids are back in school now, and life has settled down.  Which means more time for quilting!  And that is what I'm wishing for you this week, and every week.  

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

Pink, and Not Pink

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Last week I posted this picture of the back of a quilt in progress.  Now for the big reveal!  Drum roll, please.

Sorry it has to be an indoor photo.  The weather started out nice this week, but has ended up rainy and cold.  This is another one of my small "toddler sized" quilts, just 42 in. x 48 in., which is not too difficult for me to quilt on Mrs. Pfaff, my domestic sewing machine.  It will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center.

The pieces in this box are 2.5 in. x 3.5 in., and I call them Little Bricks.  They are usually the ends of 2.5 in. or 3.5 in. strips, which are sizes I use all the time.  This box can get VERY full, which is why I designed the Little Bricks Block a couple of years ago to help use them up.

This is the Little Bricks block:  3 Little Bricks in bright colors, plus 4 background pieces. (Click HERE for the free pattern.)  Simple, and easy and quick to make.  And another chance for me to use some novelty print scraps.

Even though it used up 126 Little Bricks, it is not enough to give the scraps some room in the box.  So, I'm making at least two more, but in different patterns.  It turns out these little pieces are quite versatile.  Stay tuned for more in the next few weeks.

Snicky the cat always tries to get under quilts on rainy days.  He swirled this one up for me.  Thanks, Snicky!

Pink:  In Progress

Now for pink, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.  I'm doing something different this year.  I'm NOT making pink blocks in my usual RSC sets.  Here's the reason:  most of my quilts are made for kids.  If there are pink blocks in a quilt, adults often assume the quilt is for a girl.  Without pink blocks, the quilts can be for anyone.  

But, I do want to make some quilts specifically for kids who love pink.  The blocks above are for one of those quilts.  All the blocks will be pink!  I modified a pattern I used years ago called Sticks and Stones that was designed by Bonnie Hunter.  It doesn't seem to be online any more.

More pink in progress!  I made myself another quilt kit inspired by ones I used to make for Quilts for Kids.  It's a four patch with alternate blocks of this princess print.  (Click HERE for the free pattern.)  I just need to add the inner pink and outer princess borders to finish the top.

I didn't have a whole lot of time in the sewing room this week.  This is why:

It's spring break, and these dudes were here!  We had lots of fun, including going to see the new Mario movie on the opening day.  In the photo above, Buddy and Little Guy have just finished a 100 piece puzzle by themselves.  Their mom and I also did a different 100 piece puzzle, but it took us longer.  The boys were very proud of themselves.

Easter is tomorrow!  As I was going through my pink and background fabrics, I kept finding bunny prints, including a bunny in scrubs and a circus bunny.  Those little bunny squares are going in the center of some more pink blocks.

We will all be going to our eldest daughter's house for Easter brunch and an egg hunt for the kids.

Happy Easter to all who celebrate, and happy quilting to everyone!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

A Scrappy Star, and Lots of Red

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Twinkle Twinkle Scrappy Star is a top!  I hung it in our maple tree on a sunny day last week.

The blocks were easy and fun to make.  The points even came out right, most of the time!  All thanks to quilt designer Lori Holt.

I discovered the tutorial for this quilt on Lori Holt's Youtube channel.  I had two of her books, but hadn't really done anything with them.  After I watched a ton of her videos I ordered two more books.  My favorite is the one on top in the photo, Scrappiness is Happiness.  The directions on Youtube are very clear, and you wouldn't need the book to make the quilt, but I wanted to see all the other great designs.  Plus, as you'd expect from a retired librarian, I like hard copies!

The directions and photos in the book are great too.  You can see that Lori set her blocks side by side. I went for sashing and cornerstones for a slightly different look, which helps separate the wide variety of background fabrics I used.

All of the star points came from my box of 2.5 in. x 4.5 in. rectangles, so all I had to cut were the background pieces.  Did you notice the Peanuts Easter fabric in the block above?  I'm using holiday fabrics even in non-holiday quilts if the color is right.

My quilt is 56 in. x 66 in., and will be donated as a top to the Children's Advocacy Center.  A volunteer will quilt it.

Here's an adorable snuggly flannel baby quilt, also going to the CAC.  I didn't make this one, my friend Tammy M. did.

Tammy had a really good idea, which I will be shamelessly stealing.  This quilt is made of leftover border strips.  Tammy sewed them together (see the seam in the middle?) and quilted them.  People often donate this kind of thing to our group, or these borders end up in second hand sales, and I never knew what to do with them.  Now I know!  Thanks, Tammy!

It's the last week of red month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I had two sets of blocks to work on if I was going to get done on time.  First is the Half Log Cabin.  The block above is one I made to test my pattern.

It was fun digging through the red scraps to find fun prints.

Isn't red a great color?

Lastly, the crumb blocks!  I made all of these yesterday.  Still not sure what I'm doing with them at the end of the year.  My favorite block is the one with the south end of a north bound cow.  (It's the second block from the top, on the right.)

In Progress

I'm still working on the Cabin Steps quilt blocks as leaders and enders.  This one is going to take a while.

Meanwhile, this little quilt will be getting an orange binding.  The backing fabric is from 2012, and I bought it second hand in an antique shop.  All those colorful words are names of towns in Wisconsin. I'll show the front of the quilt next week.

Farewell to red month for the RSC, it's been fun!  I'm sure our next color will great, too.

Have a lovely week, everyone.  Happy Quilting!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Strings and Whirlygigs

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Does your guild encourage members to try new techniques?  Ours certainly does!  I try to participate when I can.  Learning new things is good for us.

This month our guild had a challenge project using a particular method of quilt-as-you-go, where the quilting and piecing are done at the same time.  Sort of.  This is my finished project.

You could use any blocks, so I chose string blocks.  I pieced the strips onto a square of scrap batting, piecing and quilting in one step.  So far, easy and fun.

It got a little tougher at the next step.  I cut solid blue backing squares 2 in. bigger than the string squares, and spray basted the string squares to them.  Then comes the joining together part.  The backing squares are sewn together with a one-inch seam right next to the string blocks, and the seam allowances are folded over the front of the blocks, pressed under, and top stitched down.  I hope this makes sense. 

It was pretty easy to DO, but for me it wasn't easy to get everything to line up right, even with the help of an iron.  I was not very happy about how uneven it looked.

The fabrics in the blocks were bright and fun, and I was glad to use them up.  On the advice of the project leader, I bound the quilt with a separate binding, but you could do the edges the same as the block joins.

Here's what the back looks like.  Each one of those squares is a separate piece of fabric.

All in all, it wasn't my favorite method, but it was good to try something new.  And maybe I'm just too critical of my quilt, since it won third place in the judging!  I got a $15.00 gift card to a quilt shop!  The quilt will be donated locally.

Do you see the snow in the picture above?  I took that photo yesterday.  Today the snow is nearly gone, and runoff water is everywhere.

This ditch in the park still has ice at the edge though.

Today it's 57 degrees F and sunny, and it feels like spring if you don't look at the piles of snow here and there.  I saw two Sandhill Cranes this morning in the park, and three robins in our front yard.  None of them consented to pose for photos, sadly.

 

More red blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  These are four of my whirlygigs.  I dug into the novelty scraps for these.  There are dogs and paw prints, teddy bears and hearts, bugs and ants, and dots and Dr. Seuss.

Two more, with Bucky Badger, ladybugs, and baseballs.  I was really supposed to make five, but got carried away.  Oops, extra!

This time I added a new step when making them, and it helped them come out straight.  It was suggested by Maggie Fellow of the Making A Lather blog.  After sewing the two pieces together for each of the four quarters of the block, Maggie squares them up.  OMG, this is the best idea!  Why didn't I think of that?  (Because I'm not a genius like her, of course.)  The original design says to square the whole block up, but honestly this works better.  Thanks, Maggie!  (Click HERE and scroll down for Maggie's directions.  Her blocks are called Rolling Windmills.)

In Progress

The Twinkle Twinkle Scrappy Star top is still in progress, and might be finished for next week's blog.  Stay tuned!

This little quilt kit is on deck after Twinkle.  Did you ever send away for a kit from Quilts for Kids back in the day?  They would send you everything you needed for a top.  Once it was done it was sent back to them to quilt and distribute to kids in hospitals.  I did several of those, both from Quilts for Kids and made up from my own fabric.  This is a similar kit I put together for myself.

In the kit are 15 Bright Hopes blocks I made for last year's RSC, plus 15 squares of a print that looks like kids' crayon drawings.  There are also four 1.5 in. strips for an inner border, and four 3.5 in. strips for the outer border of the same crayon drawing fabric.  Fun and easy to sew!  I can't wait to get started.

I'd show you the scraps for my leaders and enders project, but Lizzy is sitting in the box!  This project is going to take a while, especially since I now realize I need 36 blocks, not 30.  But, a little at a time, it will be sewn.

So what's going on in your world today?  I hope you are having time to do things you want to do.  Have a lovely week, everyone!  

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap