Orange Scraps and a Splot

Welcome to the blog!  Isn't orange a gorgeous color?  It's the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, one of my favorite internet quilt-alongs.  I'm making some crumb blocks here...

and trying them out as centers for Sawtooth Square blocks.  What do you think?  I got this idea from Victoria Findlay Wolfe's book 15 Minutes of Play.

Speaking of great books, have you seen this one?  It's Quilting With a Modern Slant, by Rachel May.  It's not exactly new (2014), but it is absolutely packed with ideas, photos, and stuff to actually read!  I don't really consider myself a modern quilter (hello, tubs of reproduction fabric in my basement!) but I am loving this book.

When not reading this week, I made this.  It's homemade play dough!  It was fast and easy to make, very colorful, and nice and soft.  Plus cheap!  Click HERE for the recipe.

Here's my Little Buddy, playing with it for the first time.  It's been raining nearly all week, so we enjoyed having something different to do.

My finish for the week is my wild house quilt, quilted and bound and ready to mail away for the Hands 2 Help Challenge 2019.  It will go to Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo.  It started as a Rainbow Scrap quilt.

It's definitely a happy quilt!

My inspiration was this book:  The Big Orange Splot, by Daniel Pinkwater.  I'm a retired children's librarian, and I've always loved Pinkwater's wackiness.

The story starts with a neat street of houses that all look the same.  Then a seagull drops a jar of paint on Mr. Plumbean's house and makes a big orange splot.

Mr. Plumbean's answer to the problem--more paint!  He leaves the splot, and adds all sorts of wild colors and drawings.  As he says in the story, "My house is me, and I am it.  My house is where I like to be, and it looks like all my dreams."
One by one, his neighbors come over to ask him to put his house back the way it was.  And one by one, the neighbors go home and paint their own houses...

until the whole street looks like this.

I think of this quilt like Mr. Plumbean's neighborhood, with all the houses bright and different.

I hope the quilt will provide some comfort and distraction for someone enduring chemo.  Maybe it's kind of childlike, but I think a free spirited adult would enjoy it as well.

I'm wishing a childlike joy for us all this week.  Now I'm going to go scarf down the last chocolate cupcake!
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:
Angela at Soscrappy
Myra at Busy Hands Quilts
Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Cynthia at Oh Scrap