Big Bright Hopes

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Big Bright Hopes is a flimsy!  You may remember me starting this one after our last guild meeting, when I was inspired by a block like this in the scrap pile on the free table.  The blocks were easy to sew as leader and enders while working on other projects.  (Sorry about the inside photos.  It's been raining all day today.)

I chose novelty print squares for the 5 in. (cut) centers, and bright colored strips in calmer prints to surround the centers.  The strips were cut 2.5 in. x 7 in.

When it comes to math, I like to keep it simple.  I needed 140 strips to make 35 blocks.  So if I chose 7 colors, I only needed 20 strips in each color.  Perfect!  

Big Bright Hopes will be approx. 50 in. x 67 in. when finished, and will be donated locally.

Speaking of big bright hopes, it was Little Guy's 6th birthday this week!

He posed for us, wearing the stickers he got at school for being the birthday boy and his classroom's Star of the Week.

After opening presents, the boys had fun with a musical birthday card.  

Too much excitement!  After they went home, I went back to the sewing room.

In honor of red week for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I made the red Dawn Chorus blocks.  Each big block is 4 small blocks put together.  This one has Bucky Badger and cows, appropriate for Wisconsin.

The novelty prints in this block are dogs and dog bones.

This one is my favorite.  The bird fabric came from the scrap tsunami (see last week's blog), there are lots of rabbits, and some dinosaurs and friends from the 1990s.  I don't think I'll ever run out of that dino fabric.

It's always fun to get out a new color of scraps at the beginning of the month.  I can't wait to see what everyone else is making.

In Progress

Remember the string blocks?  All 30 of them are done.  And because the strings were sewn directly onto a batting square, they are quilted as well.  I'm going to try a new-to-me technique with them, wish me luck!

These are the blocks I'm sewing in the photo with the string blocks.  It's a Lori Holt pattern she calls Twinkle Twinkle Scrappy Star.  I found a tutorial for it on her You Tube channel.  (Click HERE.)  All the print pieces for 30 blocks were in my box of 2.5 in. x 4.5 in. rectangles.  I had to cut most of the background pieces from strips and scraps.  It's a fun block to piece.

Good luck this week with all your projects.  Happy Quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestiches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

And now, just a few words about quilts and politics.  Feel free to skip, I won't mind.

Today I spent some time watching the funeral of the Reverend Jesse Jackson on television.  It was sad to see the passing of such an important Civil Rights leader, but heartening to see and hear how many people were inspired by him to continue his work, including three presidents and a vice president.

He was familiar with quilts in his own background.  In two of his most famous speeches, he spoke about quilts as a metaphor for our country.  

In 1984, in his speech at the Democratic Convention, he said:

"America is not like a blanket - one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size.  America is more like a quilt - many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt."

Four year later, he again referenced quilting, with an example from his own life, as he emphasized finding common ground with each other. 

"America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth. When I was a child growing up in Greenville, South Carolina my grandmama could not afford a blanket, she didn't complain and we did not freeze. Instead she took pieces of old cloth - patches, wool, silk, gabardine, crockersack - only patches, barely good enough to wipe off your shoes with. But they didn't stay that way very long. With sturdy hands and a strong cord, she sewed them together into a quilt, a thing of beauty and power and culture."

[By the way, crockersack refers to a burlap bag.]

Later in the speech he said:

"Be as wise as my grandmama.  Pull the patches and the pieces together, bound by a common thread.  When we form a great quilt of unity and common ground, we'll have the power to bring about health care and housing and jobs and education and hope to our Nation."

I remember these uplifting speeches, and of course I loved the mention of quilts.  I also love the hope that we can find common ground with each other.  

We are more alike than we are unalike.

Farm Quilt and Green Crumbs

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

The Farm Quilt is a top!  The wind died down enough yesterday afternoon to take a photo outside.

Isn't this farm print fun?  I knew when I picked it up at a quilt guild meeting that it could be a good border.  It came from our guild stash, which is donated to us.  Check out the date:  1999!  With proper storage, good quality cottons can last a long time.

The blue fabric with chickens was also from the guild stash.  I originally wanted to have a narrow border of the blue between the main part of the quilt and the red border.  Unfortunately, when I did the math I didn't have enough of the red for that option, especially if I wanted to show most of the repeat of the farm print.  I will make the binding from the blue.

Here's what I meant about the border repeat.  These borders were cut at 4.5 in. and you still can't see the whole scene.

The framed blocks were cut from several different farm and/animals prints.  I have a bag of farm themed fabrics and scraps that I used to make the 16 patch blocks.  And to no one's surprise, even after all these blocks the bag is STILL not close to being empty. 

 I counted 8 different tractor prints in the bag, both scraps and yardage.  They were mostly John Deere but also International Harvester, and some generic ones like the block above framed in dark green.

The blocks are 8 in. finished, and the top measures 49 in. x 65 in.  It will be donated locally.  I don't plan to quilt it myself as I know others can do a better job.  It will either be quilted by someone in my quilt guild, or by Lynn with the Children's Advocacy Center.

Tomorrow is the last day of February, and that means the last day of green month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I finished these crumb type blocks just in time!  I'm making them from leftover small pieces and strips.  After making a Duckworth quilt as a guild challenge, I've changed how I make this kind of block.  Now I'm working from the center, kind of like a log cabin, instead of a less organized approach.  It's fun to learn new things!

While I had the green crumbs and strips out I made a few more things for an eventual village type wall hanging.  There's a big green house with a Green Bay Packers strip, some green grass for the little blue house, and a couple of trees made from scrap triangles.  I'm not really happy with the big tree, I think it looks less like a tree and more like a big green tent, but it might be better when I add a trunk.

In Progress

New Project Alert!  Multicolored string blocks are under my treadle's needle today.  I went through my bags of strings and pulled out bright strips of all the colors.  I'm sewing them to batting scraps.  This will end up being a quilt for another guild challenge.

Check out this orange strip!  It's from a scrap of Halloween fabric I got from the free table at guild a while back.  The whole verse on the fabric says: 

Trick or Treat

Smell my feet

Give me something good to eat.

Rude, right?  I'm glad the manufacturer didn't include the rest of that rhyme that the kids at school used to say!

Here's a little more green for the last day of green month.  That's me, standing outside our hotel in Arizona in January next to the tallest cactus I have ever seen.

Time to go cut up more batting squares and do something about the scrap pile on the cutting board.

Have a good week, everyone, and happy quilting!

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Many Hands Make Light Work, and a Scrap Tsunami

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

 

Technically, I managed to take an outdoor photo of this quilt now that it's finished.  The wind was terrible that day, it's a miracle I got to take it at all before the clothespins shot off the clothesline and I had to grab the quilt to keep it from falling.  Weird weather here lately.

Ah, that's better, safely inside.  You might remember this as a top I finished in December.  The charm squares were given to me by a friend at quilt guild.  I sewed them up, and added the border from stash.

Another friend, the Amazing Colleen, did the quilting on her long arm, and it turned out great!

Our guild supplied the batting and this colorful blue backing.  I did the binding, with pink binding also supplied by the guild and made by one of the members. 

Lots of us put our time and effort into finishing this quilt.  Many hands really do make light work!  It will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

 I didn't have a lot of time for sewing this week, but I am keeping up to date on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  These are the Whirlygigs, made using Preeti Harris' tutorial. (Click HERE).  One of these prints is an Easter print with Snoopy and Charlie Brown.  Lately I decided to just go ahead and use holiday prints on my scrap quilts.  It's all fabric, right?

Wonderful and fun things happened this week!  The Winter Quilt Show in West Bend last Saturday was a highlight.  One of the vendors had these antique sewing machines for sale.  They were calling to me, but I didn't weaken.  I still have several and enjoy getting them out from time to time.

These ladies were documenting a lovely crazy quilt from the 1880s.  It was in very good condition, with very little shattered silk.

This was my favorite quilt in the show!  The maker wrote about her immigrant grandparents in her artist's statement.

This little quilt is inspiring me to make something similar with novelty print squares.  I haven't figured out just what yet.

I might have bought some fabric at the show.  But none of it cost over $10 per yard!

In Progress

The Farm Quilt is coming along well.  All the blocks are finished and set together, ready for the borders.  I'm taking a little time to decide which fabrics to use.  I'm glad to have several good choices.

Meanwhile, the green crumbs and strings are spread out all over as I work on February's final RSC set.

But, scraps got me sidetracked!!!

Wednesday night was our monthly guild meeting.  This scrap tsunami was on one of the tables.  The scraps were donated to the guild by someone in the community.  Our guild has quite a large stash of fabric yardage, but we have no room for scraps. We were encouraged to TAKE SCRAPS HOME.  Any not taken would be donated elsewhere.  Woo Hoo!!!

Look at all the cool stuff I snagged!  Plus the Amazing Colleen brought me some too.

All I can say is, the scraps made me do it!  This is what I did this morning, instead of working on all the other quilts in progress.  The block on the left above was in the scrap tsunami.  I really liked it.  It's like a big Bright Hopes block.  All of a sudden I decided to make a quilt like this, but using a charm square for a center instead of the original 5.5 in. square.  (The charm squares are trying to burst out of their plastic shoebox.  Must use them up!)  My practice block is the one on the right.

I already had the new-to-me scraps out, so I cut all the rectangles I could from them.  I chose non-novelty prints for these, mostly geometrics, knowing I would use novelties for the centers.  The rest of the needed rectangles were cut from my parts department.

All I have to do now is choose charm squares, and I can start sewing this quilt as leaders and enders.

So that was my week.  How was yours?  I hope you had at least as much fun as I did!  

Take care, and happy quilting!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Strings and Things

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Look, it's an outside photo!  And the ground is almost snow-free!  Could this be Wisconsin in February?  We're having a nice little thaw.  The high today was 47 degrees F, and that dripping sound is ice and snow melting off everything.

I did not even wear a coat when I went outside to take these pictures.  I did zip up my sweatshirt, though.  And I wasn't out very long lol.

I love string quilts!  Even though I make a huge mess in the sewing room when I work on one.  These blocks were part a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project from 2024.  I'm slowly working my way through the RSC blocks.

Do you see those wild blocks above?  One month I made string blocks just from multicolor fabrics.  They might even be a little too wild for me.  I had a hard time deciding what to do with them.  In the future, I think I will mix the multicolor strips in with plainer strips for more of a balance in any given block.  I do love all those multis though.  There are so many fun fabrics in there.

Lizzy tested out the quilt before I got it bound.  It has her seal of approval for naps in the sunshine.

Check out this summery border!  Flip flops and swim suits, bucket hats and the summer sun.

The back is this aqua print with aqua and purple dragonflies.  The solid lavender fabric was still on the cutting table from binding last week's bright hopes quilt, so it was an easy choice for this binding as well.  The quilt is 39 in. x 45 in., and will be donated locally.

As usual, I'm digging into my scraps to make green blocks for the RSC color of the month.  First are my Dawn Chorus blocks (above and below).  The green pieces are 2.5 in. wide, which is one of the strip widths I keep on hand in my "parts department".  I did have to cut a few more strips from the big scraps to get enough variety.

The light strips are only 1.5 in. wide, and I don't keep them in stock.  It's been helpful to have my light fabrics more accessible, including the scraps so I can grab them and cut them up.  If I happen to have a full strip I can cut enough for two of the quarter sections of the block, and save the extra set for another month.

 

I got a second set of RSC blocks done ahead, which must be some kind of miracle.  These are the ones I've been calling Half Log Cabin.  It has belatedly occurred to me that this set and Dawn Chorus are both log cabin variations.  I guess I just wanted to do more log cabins this year.  Both of these are going to use up lots of 2.5 in. strips, which is a good thing.  That drawer is REALLY full.

This Wednesday I joined some of the awesome ladies from our guild to work on charity projects.  I don't know why I can't remember to take pictures at any events.  Maybe I get too wrapped up in what's going on?  Anyway, we were making book pillows, like the one above.  Last year a local group requested some of these, and our guild ended making at least 100 of them.  My friend The Amazing Colleen had a whole box of kits cut out for more, so we sewed them up.  I made this one after I got home.

When we give them away, they have a pillow form inside, and we add a book in the front pocket.  The handle is so kids can carry them around.  They are made so that the pillow form can be taken out for washing.

The book I put in the pocket is one of my grandson Buddy's favorites from when he was little.  It's the classic story of Corduroy the bear, by Don Freeman.

In Progress

I'm still working on the farm quilt as a leader/ender project (see last week's post) with 6 blocks left to go.  The small top I was working on got moved to flimsy stage (hurray!) so this set of Little Bricks blocks is next.  

The box on the left contains my Little Bricks pieces, which are rectangles 2.5 in. x 3.5 in.  I was hoping to use up a lot of these this year.  So far I have pieced 3 small tops from them, plus these blocks.  And the box is still full.  What kind of magic is this?

Valentines Day is tomorrow! Buddy and Little Guy (and their mom) came over after school yesterday and we sent them home with candy and cards and hugs.  Today their big brother stopped by after work for his.  We sent a box of treats to Kenosha for our grandkids Mr. H and Miss E.  Then we gifted each other chocolate and cupcakes.  Oh, dear, I feel a diet heading my way.

Happy Valentines Day to all who celebrate! And have a very happy weekend!  I know I will have a good day tomorrow:  I'm going to a quilt show!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap