Visiting

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Last Saturday was a wonderful day!  My friend Debbie C. and I spent the day in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.  First we had a lovely lunch at the Anvil Pub and Grill.  The weather was a little cool but sunny, and it was great to be outside.

Then we went to the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts to see the current exhibit and hear a talk given by four of the featured artists about their work.

The exhibit is called Slow Light.  According to the museum's description, "Slow Light is part of the museum's ongoing commitment to expanding the definition of fiber art."  We really enjoyed hearing the artists describing their media, their inspirations, and their techniques.  My favorite pieces were digitally woven from paper yarn, which I had never heard of before.  Click HERE for an article from Knit Magazine about Japanese paper yarn.

The exhibit runs through August 16th.

Seeing the exhibit and especially visiting with Debbie was the highlight of the week.  

I did get a little sewing done.  I started putting the small Stack It Up blocks together in blocks of four, with the light pieces in the center.  Lori Holt, the designer, appliqued hearts in the centers of her blocks.  I'm trying to decide if I want to do that with mine.  What would you do?

Last week I mentioned that I had resized Ms. Holt's small blocks to be 6 in. finished instead of 4 in., but I never gave you the dimensions in case you'd like to do that too.

Here they are, in cut (not finished) sizes.

Cut 1 dark square 2 in. x 2 in. and 1 light squares 2 in. x 2 in.

Cut 1 dark rectangle 2 in. x 3.5 in. and 1 light rectangle 2 in. x 3.5 in.

Cut 1 dark rectangle 2 in. x 5 in. and 1 light rectangle 2 in. x 5 in.

Cut 1 dark rectangle 2 in. x 6.5 in.

The small blocks are 6 in. x 6 in. finished.  Four of these sewn together measure 12 in. x 12 in.

Unfortunately, I had to go out of town for a family funeral on Wednesday, so I didn't get much sewing done.  It was important to us to be there for our family members, and my Mom and I enjoyed catching up with relatives we don't see often.  I do wish we could have more family reunions and fewer funerals.

The last four blocks for the pastel baby quilt are sewn, so it's time to set them together and finish it up!  I'm hoping to get some time this weekend to catch up.  I guess maybe I'm a little bit ahead (?) since these are aqua and aqua is our Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for July.

Early in the week the boys and I went to the playground.  Buddy asked me to take this photo of his head encircled by the apparatus.  

I asked our Little Guy to pose for me to show off his missing teeth.  I think he turned into the dinosaur on his shirt.  He's a wild one!

Have a great week, everyone, with lots of time for the things you love to do.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Color Block Stars and Stack It Up

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Good morning and happy Saturday!  The Color Block Star top is done and hanging on the clothesline.  I added the border on Wednesday and the weather cooperated for a sunny photo yesterday.

It was really too big for the clothesline at 54 in. x 68 in.  Twelve inch blocks really add up!

 In addition to two of each of the "regular" colors I made two black blocks and two multicolor ones.  I forgot how many fun prints I had in black and multicolor.

I bought this colorful alphabet on the border at the museum sale.  I guess blue is my favorite border color.  I use other colors but I always go back to blue.  Do you have a favorite border color?

Every block has 15 print squares plus one white one.  That makes 300 squares, right?  So why do I still have a full box of 3.5 in. squares?  (Magic?)

The top will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

The Color Block Stars pattern is available for free HERE.  It was part of a block drive last year for Many Hands Many Hearts on the Oh Scrap blog.  (Thanks, Cynthia!)

  

Working on the top reminded me to get started on some blocks for the current MHMH block drive.  We're making these easy "potato chip-ish" blocks in complimentary colors.  I'm a little short on red and green prints (except for novelties of course!) but I had some orange/blue and yellow/purple to get started on.

Now for some pastels!  Well, mostly.  This time they're green, and they'll be part of the pastel baby quilt I hope to finish before the end of the month.

In Progress

As you can see, I'm treadling again!  My treadle is now in the dining room right under the window.  It's a good place to sew, especially when I'm waiting on supper to cook.  The jungle outside the window is a tangle of black raspberry vines, now with baby green raspberries ripening in the sun.

Once I finished the Color Block Stars top I went digging in the kits, block sets, etc. for the next project.  I chose a partial kit I cut a few weeks ago to make Stack It Up, a Lori Holt pattern.  

Last winter I really got into watching Lori Holt's videos on YouTube.  She has so many fun ideas for scrappy quilts.  Click HERE for the video for her 4 in. finished Stack It Up.  I wanted slightly bigger blocks, so I scaled mine up to 6 in. finished by cutting all the pieces from 2 in. strips.

So that's all the sewing news from our house.   But there is something even better than happened.

Our eldest daughter finished her Master's degree!  That's quite an accomplishment while working full time as a first grade teacher and looking after her husband and two teenagers.  We're very proud of her!

Have a good week, everyone, and thanks for reading this!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Not Finished, But Making Progress

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Woohoo!  I got back from Oklahoma just in time for the big rummage sale at the Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts in Cedarburg, WI.  This is the loot I scored, over 33 yards of bright cotton fabric, most with cute kid-friendly prints.  I can hardly believe how lucky I am.  Many many thanks to all the people who donated fabric and the volunteers who organized it all.  Yippee!

Some of that loot will be made into Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks, now and in the future.  These yellow blocks are part of this month's pastel challenge.  Some of them are a little bold, I know, but I'm using up what I've got.

It's fun to put them with last week's light blues and test some possible layouts.  I'm interested to see what everybody else is doing with this challenge, since it's a new one.  (Check the link ups below to see for yourself!)

In Progress

What is your favorite thing about finishing a quilt?  Mine is picking the next project!  Last year I made Color Block Stars for the Many Hands Many Hearts Block Drive at the Oh Scrap blog.  I loved them so much I also made blocks for a quilt to donate locally.  I set them aside due to other deadlines, and in my head I thought I had made 20 blocks, which would made a nice sized top.  Imagine my surprise when I opened the bag and found only 12 blocks.  Oops!  Well, that's a problem I can fix!  So now I'm making 8 more.

Click HERE for the directions from Many Hands Many Hearts.

Here's my current sewing set up.  We're moving some things around in the house, and I can't use my beloved treadle right now.  Luckily I have an adorable Featherweight to sub in.  Don't worry, treadling will be restored, probably this weekend.

I had such a good visit with my Mom and sister in Oklahoma last week.  One of the highlights has to be the Oklahoma City Senior Follies.  Wonderfully talented senior guys and gals entertained us royally with singing, dancing, comedy, and screaming guitars.  It was great fun, and the show raised $20,000 for the Alzheimer's Association.

Of course I did a little quilt-related shopping while I was there!  Mom and I went to a new-to-me store called B Sew Inn.  Most of the shop was devoted to Baby Lock machines, but two charm packs came home with me.  Check out all the cats!  I especially love the prints with tuxedo cats like my Snicky.

The second pack had these bright prints which will be great in my kid quilts.  The colors are brighter in person.

As excited as I am to go visiting, I'm always happy to come home again.  These guys are just two of the reasons why!  It's full summer here now, alternating between warm days and thunder storms.  Buddy and Little Guy love cooling off with ice cream.  Me too!

I hope you're feeling well and having fun this week, doing things you love to do.  Like quilting!  Have a great week, everyone!

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

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Friendship Stars, Pastel Blocks, and Oklahoma

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Here's what's happening this week.

The little Friendship Star quilt has moved from In Progress to done.  I was so glad to use up a handful of leftover hsts to make the star points.

The alternate blocks are made of a cute construction print.  I bought it from the Sew Our Stash shop at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts.  It was part of an unfinished kit that someone had donated.  (Thanks, unknown donor!)

The center squares and light squares were supplied by my "parts department".  I can't imagine running out of 2.5 in. squares ever by the way.  How about you?

There's a narrow inner border of red solid, and a larger border of the construction fabric.

For the back, I used this print from my stash, with words like beep and vroom and rumble rumble.  I was planning to use the red solid for the binding, but I made a miscut and didn't have enough, so the red print had to do.

The quilt will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

Just by chance I even had a pastel blue star.  Pastels are our colors of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  On it!

In Progress:  Pastel Baby Quilt

As you might guess from this blog, I love bright colors, and that's what I have the most of in my stash and scraps.  But I do have a small bin of "baby" fabric scraps in pastel shades of blue, green, aqua, and 

yellow.  I also had some strips of 1.5 in. light prints to go with them to make blocks like this.

So, now I'm making a baby quilt!  I'll make some blocks every week, and try to get the top done by the end of the month.  These scraps deserve to come out and play too.

The block is just an uneven nine patch.  

Here's the recipe:

Cut four 3.5 in. squares from a pastel print.

Cut four 1.5 in. x 3.5 in. rectangles from a light print.

Cut one 1.5 in. x 1.5 in. square from a pastel print.

Sew as for a nine patch.

In other news, I'm in Oklahoma, visiting my mom.   This is Mom, posing with our buffalo statue friend.  We were visiting the Oklahoma History Center.  We had such a good time!  The highlight was the exhibit about the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! which we both had always loved.  Visitors are even encouraged to sing along with the theme song.  Which we did, of course!

The History Center museum gift store had a section of books for only $2.00 each, which of course drew me like a magnet.  I bought the little book above about Woody Guthrie and I'm enjoying reading it.

Buddy and Little Guy are having lots of fun going swimming and playing in the park.  My daughter sent me this picture of her boys, and told me they are missing me.  I'm missing them too!  I will see them soon.

I hope you're feeling well and having a good week, doing all the things you love to do.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Little Bricks and Squares

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

We're out on the porch this sunny morning, soaking up the sunshine!  I started this little quilt back in February, and finished it yesterday.

Sometimes I have an idea, and cut fabric to make a quilt.  Other times I decide what to make based on which "parts department" bin is overflowing.  This time it was the 2.5 in. x 3.5 in. rectangle bin.

I call those rectangles Little Bricks, and I have a couple of designs I use for them repeatedly.  This design is a new one.  Each block consists of two Little Bricks (blue above), one 3.5 in. (cut) light square (the bunny print), and one 2.5 in. (cut) light square (dots on white).  The block is 5 in. square finished.  I'm calling it Little Bricks and Squares.

By the way, that bunny print was one of the scraps I brought home from our trip to Edinburgh last September.  The quilt shop sold small bundles of scraps.  I bought as many as I could fit in my carry-on!

When the blocks are joined it looks sort of like a disappearing nine patch. 

The cat print also came from the Edinburgh quilt shop, and is a British fabric.  Wild cat colors!  I love it!

I matched up most of the block pieces just based on color, but this one has a nautical theme.

This one has two Route 66 prints, one for California and one for Arizona.  I matched them up with a cactus print.  I doubt if the child who gets this one will notice, but it was fun for me anyway.

The 56 blocks used up 112 Little Bricks, so that's a help for the bin.  

At 45 in. x 50 in., it's a good size for a toddler.  It will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center.

Last Saturday for orange for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  I have really enjoyed this month.  Orange is such a nice bright color.  These are my Greek Cross blocks.

In Progress

Mrs. Pfaff and I are starting to quilt the Friendship Star quilt made from leftover hsts.  I set up shop in the dining room since we're moving things around in the house.

Snicky LOVES looking out the window at the birds while I'm quilting, especially if the window is open.  The black raspberry vines outside have buds and flowers already.  I think it's going to be a great year for them.

Our lilac bush is loving this weather.  It's really grown in the last couple of years, and smells so good every time we walk out the door.

Some major events have been happening here!

Buddy turned 10 years old!  Oh my goodness, he's starting to look so grown up.

And Little Guy graduated from kindergarten!  The ceremony was a hoot, especially when the kids were wearing sun glasses and dancing.  

The years just fly by.

It's a beautiful day here, and I plan to enjoy it, inside and outside.  I hope you have a great week ahead, doing all the things you love.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap