Bright Hopes, and The Trouble With Pink

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

This is such a fun time of year!  I'm starting to finish my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts.  Blocks I've been making since January are finally going into baby-sized quilts for donation.  I know we have another green month coming up, but I've already used up most of my green scraps, so I'm putting things together early.

The two quilts above are made from Bright Hopes blocks.  (Click HERE for a tutorial on how to make them.  BTW, they're really easy.)

Now about the trouble with pink.  Our culture is pretty specific about the color pink.  It's for girls.  Just for girls.  I don't happen to agree with assigning any one color to any one gender, but this is how it is.  So if I make a quilt with pink in it, it will be donated by the charity to a girl.

Charities often report receiving more quilts for girls than for boys.  So most of the time I make my quilts gender-neutral, with lots of bright colors and fun fabrics for everyone, girls and boys.

In January, when pink was our RSC color, I thought about this "pink problem", and decided to just make enough blocks in most of the sets to make two quilts, one with pink and one without.

Both quilts have lots of novelty prints, like cows and tractors.  And I got to use up some cute pink prints in the "girl" quilt, like pink cowgirl boots, plus a cupcake print in the border.

The orange blocks I just made this month went in the not-pink quilt.  

I quilted both of these little quilts with a 2 in. grid, the pink one with the serpentine stitch and the not-pink one with a straight stitch.

I bound the not-pink quilt with an orange plaid.  The border is a turtle print I got on our vacation in July.

The backing for the pink quilt was considered an Easter print by the local chain store, so after Easter I got it very cheaply.  

The backing of the other quilt is another novelty print, with cars and trucks and helicopters.  I put a strip of the turtle fabric in the middle to make it wide enough.

So that's two quilts made.  They will go to our local Project Linus, which has been revived with a new chair person.  Project Linus gives blankets (including quilts) to children in need.  (Click HERE to find out more about Project Linus).

Guess what's in this fat little package!

Did you guess fabric?

It's an explosion of delicious scraps!  Little Buddy was here when I opened it, and he quickly picked out his favorites--dog bones, penguins, and Thomas the Tank Engine, of course.  This was my prize package from the Positivity Plus challenge, started by Pretti of Sew Preeti Quilts.  I was one of the finishers whose name was pulled out of the hat.  It was so kind of Preeti to organize this challenge to benefit Mercy Hospital, and to curate this scrap bag from her own stash!  By the way, the challenge is on again for 2022.  The pattern is fun and easy, and it goes for such a good cause.

So this has been a great week!  I even got some orange block sewing done.

Crumb hearts, with the cut-off triangles made into Friendship Stars.

Novelty prints just keep on giving!  A Halloween cat dressed up as a pirate and an orange dinosaur peek out of this one.

Little Buddy evaded the camera this week, but Baby Buddy says hi.  He even wore an orange shirt.  It's different here now, with Little Buddy in kindergarten all day, but we still have a good time.

I wishing good times for all in the week ahead.  Take care, and stay safe.

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

 

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Cynthia at Oh Scrap