A Finish, Purple Blocks, Berries, and a Little Thief

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

I finished a quilt on Monday.  And it wasn't a baby quilt!  It was one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects from 2021, a twin-sized reproduction quilt.

I got started late in February on these blocks using my 1800s reproduction scraps.  The pattern, called Poinsettia Star, comes from the fabulous Bonnie Hunter's book Scraps and Shirttails II, as part of her Carolina Christmas quilt.  The star shapes (aka petals) were in the color of the month, with an additional color as an accent in the squares, plus a lot of light prints for background.

Here's all the blocks, laid out on the floor.  I didn't make a top for this quilt.  Instead, I divided it into sections so I could finish it quilt-as-you-go, with no handwork.

If you'd like to know how I do that, I've written a tutorial using this quilt as an example.  A couple of years ago I tried my hand at writing something similar, and got bogged down in prose and too many pictures.  This time, I've simplified things.  If you'd like to see it, click HERE.

For backing, I used some of my collection of Toile de Jouy prints.  I specifically chose the ones with patriotic and historical American images.  I only had about a yard of each, and two of the pieces are the same print, just in different colors.

Flags, covered wagons, Lady Liberty and George Washington!

A great quilt to finish on July 4th.

So that's the last of the RSC quilts from 2021!  (Never mind the RSC quilts from earlier years.  I've got more work to do there!)

For this year, the lovely purple scraps have come out to play as the color of the month for July.

I don't seem to have very many purple novelty prints.  How dreadful!  Something must be done!

In other news, our raspberries are starting to get ripe.  The little boys and I have been picking them in the mornings.  It's not cold out, we're wearing sweatshirts to keep the mosquitos off.  They've been awful this year.  (The mosquitos, not the boys!)

Very few of the berries end up back in the house.  I wonder why?

It happened again!  Can you tell what this terribly blurry picture is?  I caught this striped culprit in the netting that goes over my little strawberry patch.  A couple of weeks ago I caught the same one or its relative in just the same way.  This time, I took a quick photo before cutting the little scoundrel loose.  Next year, I'm going to work on a better system to keep the sneaky rodents and birds out.

For now, we're going to make the most of all the pleasures of the season.

Have a happy week!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap