A New Blue Start

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Sunshine and blue skies have visited us this week, and it feels like a classic Wisconsin spring.

In between digging into my light blue scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month, I finished this baby quilt to donate to Little Lambs for Hands2Help.

The star of this quilt is Clifford the Big Red Dog, shown here as a firefighter.  Back before Clifford was on TV, he was the hero of a series of books by Norman Bridwell, and was well-loved by children in my libraries.  He even helped me bridge the language gap with a little boy who was new to the school and only spoke Spanish.  His eyes lit up when he saw the book I was going to read to his class, and I think that familiarity helped more than my fumbling Spanish to put him at ease.

The pattern for this little quilt comes from this book, Seamingly Scrappy, by Rebecca Silbaugh.

It's called Field Day.  I replaced the green squares of the original with the Clifford squares, made fewer blocks, and left off the borders.  My quilt measures 36 in. x 42 in.

I always appreciate designers who give us a good pressing diagram.  This one was perfect, and made all the seams nest nicely.

The white background print of dogs was a leftover from a backing, and the print squares came from my box of extra squares.  I included this rainbow zebra ...

...a square just of Clifford's face...

and a lovely kitten to represent an alternate viewpoint.

The backing is this silly print with fire hydrants.  You might be able to see the quilting here.  I just followed the square "paths" in the ditch, with extra straight line quilting on Clifford squares.

 Meanwhile, more dogs!

Do your scraps ever surprise you?  I had no idea I had so many light blue dog-themed prints.

No surprise here, just awesome blue minions!  

We went to the playground this week for the first time since fall of 2019.  Little Buddy is so brave, crossing this rope bridge.

Baby Buddy just likes the wood chips.  When you're a baby, it's the simple things.

This is how we felt, being outside again in the park.

This week, my husband and I got our second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.  More and more of our family is getting vaccinated, and I am so thankful.  Soon this nightmare may be over, and we can all do the simple things we miss, like playing in the park.  Or going to quilt stores in person!

This tiny bunny in the center of the star is saying Happy Easter tomorrow to all who celebrate.  

Have a lovely week!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap