Light Blue Scraps, and Antique Scrap Quilts

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Sorry about being gone last week.  I went to a family reunion in New Jersey.  More about that next week.

Did you guess this was a pinker?

First, a little bit about this fun little device.  It's a Singer pinker, a clever gadget that cuts a pinked edge into fabric, leather, even paper.  I put a picture of one up on last week's very abbreviated blog.

The fabric fits under the cutting wheel, and you turn the crank.  Unfortunately mine doesn't have the original clamp that would hold it to the table, so when I use it I always wish I had one more hand. 

It was popular in the 1930s, and is much easier to use than pinking shears in my opinion, even without a clamp to hold it to the table.  For more information, click HERE.

Meanwhile, I was piecing my light blue scraps into my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.  This one is Razzle Dazzle.

As usual, it's a sort of organized chaos.  So much fun to sew!

And lastly, the light blue crayon, shown here on my refrigerator.  (It's really hard to find a place to photograph it!)

I only have a very small scrap of the penguin fabric, so I made sure to put it near the top.

I can't believe it's almost time to put the RSC quilts together!  This year has gone by so fast.

And so has this month!  Here we are at the last Saturday of September.

So that means it's time for antique quilts.

Recently I bought this little top from another collector who was "thinning the herd".

Here it is laid out on a queen sized bed.  Even with a border, it will be a small quilt when finished, suitable for a crib or for display.

The pattern is Ocean Waves, pieced by hand, with yellow solid squares.  The fabrics date from the 1930s/1940s.  There are literally thousands of half square triangles.

As you can see from the ruler, these hsts are less than an inch square!  I cannot imagine cutting all these triangles by hand, let alone piecing them.  Maybe that's why the quilt isn't any bigger--it was just too much work!

Here's the back, with all those tiny seams.

I plan to finish this top with vintage backing, cotton batting, and some simple machine quilting.  But first, I have to figure out how I'm going to finish the edge.

For our second quilt, I chose another scrap quilt from the 1930s, but it is very different than the first one.

At first glance, it looks like just random scraps sewn together.  It's actually more organized than that.

The rectangular scraps are sewn vertically into strips about 3 inches wide in every other row.  The adjoining rows have the rectangles sewn horizontally in segments approximately 3 in. x 4 in., and then joined together across the quilt.

Here's the yardstick for a reference.  I believe many of these scraps to be from feed and/or flour sacks.  There are also dress prints, and even flannels.

All of the sewing here is by machine.  It's not quilted, but tied with red wool yarn instead.  In place of batting, there is a thin piece of flannel between the layers.

Check out the back!  This is a true scrap quilt.

I bought this quilt at a flea market, and I must admit, I just sort of felt sorry for it.  At the time, I was doing an annual bed peel at our quilt group's quilt show, and I needed examples of more "homely" quilts, ones that were made from whatever was on hand, to keep people warm and comfortable. 

It wasn't until I got home with it that I started looking more closely at how it was made.  Now I'm thinking this might be a fun idea for a new quilt.  It would definitely use up scraps!

Here's another fun idea--playing with trains with my Little Guy.

I hope you're having fun in the week ahead!  For my money, quilting is the most fun of all.

All the best,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

I can't wait to see what everybody's been up to this week!

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge  

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

Ack! No blog this coming Saturday!

 Welcome to not really Treadlestitches!

I can already see that I'm not going to have time to blog this week!  Back on Saturday, Sept. 24th.

In the meantime, can you figure out what this sewing-related object is (above)?  Hint--it's not a sewing machine.

Have a lovely week!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

A Rainbow Quilt, and a Pile of Scraps

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's no secret, I love rainbows, especially rainbow quilts.  A few months ago, the very talented Judy Gauthier gave a talk at my quilt guild.  Of course I went!  I'm a real "fangirl", and have all of her books.  The quilt I finished this week is from a pattern in her second book, Rainbow Quilts for Scrap Lovers.  I started making these blocks back in May.

The pattern is called "Rectangles Squared".  Here's Judy's version:

 Not a great picture, but you get the idea.  She has plain white squares as alternate blocks, and beautiful quilting throughout.

I admit, I have a hard time following a pattern exactly.  Or at all.  In this case, I made the blocks according to the directions, but I set them side by side with a plain border to make a baby quilt to donate.  Simple quilting and a green binding, and it's ready to go.

It was so much fun choosing fabrics!  There are only two colors in each block.  I decided  to make each block in a different color combination.  This only worked because I used THREE shades of blue:  light, medium, and dark, plus aqua.  It got a little complicated at times.

It's such a clever design.  All the pieces are the same size!  It really used up a ton of scraps.  And since the pieces are rectangles, they can be cut from two sizes of strips.  If I couldn't find the right color in the smaller size, I might find it in the larger one.

I got to use lots of my novelty prints, too.  Check out that robot.  I think she looks like the robot maid on the Jetsons TV show way back when.

The back is butterflies, with a strip of kites.
 

Speaking of rainbows, I got a few blocks done for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this week.

 

These are my 16 patch blocks, done in solid colors and multi-color prints.  The Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month is light blue.  I'm also using other blue prints from the overflowing solid fabric scrap basket.  I'm almost done making these blocks, and the basket is still overflowing.

This block is my favorite.  Novelty prints with one-way designs are fun, but can be challenging.  At least I don't have any upside down dogs here.

Where do rainbow quilts come from?  Why, rainbow scraps, of course!

This big pile has been growing on my cutting board for a few months.  I kept shoving it aside so I could cut other things, but it's been refusing to budge lately.  There is all sorts of stuff in here--prints, solids, brights, reproductions, even parts of a shirt that somebody cut out and never made, which ended up in a scrap lot someone gave me.

I don't really have a great cutting area in my sewing room.  I'm using my husband's old desk, which I like, but it's not at the right height and can't be easily raised.  But the kitchen counter is at the perfect height, and has the added benefit of being near drinks and snacks.  I cut up that pile of scraps there off and on over Labor Day weekend.  Hubby fixed his breakfast and lunch around me and never even raised an eyebrow.

Here's most of what I ended up with.  I cut 6 sizes of strips, 5 sizes of squares, and 3 sizes of rectangles.  A lot of this was from backing cut off after quilting.

I made sure to snap this photo QUICK, while the desk was still cleaned off.  I always tell myself I won't let it pile up again, that I'll cut those scraps up as soon as they appear.  Somehow, it just doesn't happen.  (BTW, there is already a new pile getting started!)

What are our boys up to this week?

The weather has been nice and warm, even hot at times.  The guys like to have a "popsicle party" after Buddy gets home from school.  (This is Buddy's new "smile for pictures" face.  Not gonna lie, it's a little scary.)

Here's a better smile!  Buddy's latest obsession is fishing, and he asked me to take this picture.  This is a toy fish, but he was really excited about going fishing for real with his dad after school.

I'm excited about my obsession, too--I'm going to a quilt show this weekend!  So glad shows are in person again.

I hope you have a joyful week.  And if you have time for quilting, so much the better!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap 

 

 

Sailing On Into the Blue

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Up, up, and away!  This cute panel was on the free table at my quilt guild's meeting a few months ago.  I finished the top, but it was lingering in the closet until I finally got it quilted this week.

Nothing too complicated here, just borders around the center.  Lots of panels are not printed straight on the fabric, and this one was no exception.  I liked that it had plenty of white around the design so I could cut it straight before adding the borders without wrecking the design.

As it turns out, I had some hot air balloon fabric on hand to add to the panel.  The inner border is a very light blue with smaller balloons, and the corners of the outer border are cut from a slightly darker blue with larger balloons.  I'm really hitting the theme hard.

Even on the back!  A kind person in my quilt group put literally yards of this adorable Hoffman fabric in the basket the group gave me.

In a nod to last month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color, I bound the little quilt with an orange print.  It will be donated to Jack's Basket.

Since it's light blue, I'm counting it as a start to the RSC color for September.

Here are 4 light blue split nine patch blocks to join the rest I've been making all year.  Now for the hard part--I have to do some math to figure out how many more blocks I need, and if I'm making two baby quilts or one twin quilt.  Size will of course dictate where the quilt or quilts are donated.  What would you do?

All the blue squares in these blocks came from my 3.5 in. box, they were already cut and waiting for a project.  Here we have sharks, caterpillars, and the Bat Mobile.

These fabrics are VERY light blue.  There are trucks, lighthouses, and a scrap of one of the balloon fabrics from the baby quilt.

The blue squares in this block have kites, fire trucks, and flowers (with a bug peeking in).

It's fun to look at the fabrics and remember the quilts these scraps came from.  The prints this time are bunnies, butterflies, and Fischer Price toys.  The bunny fabric was left over from my littlest grandson's quilt, made before he was born.

Here he is now, at two and a half.  His brother had a day off school yesterday, and we went to the library for new books.  Our library is wonderful, with so many fun things for kids to do, including this puppet theater.

Did you notice the boys' weird hair?  Their Daddy gives them haircuts, and for a joke he only cut half of each of their hair the other night.  The kids loved it, but we got some strange looks at the library.

Our Buddy didn't have school yesterday, so their Dad left their hair like this, and fixed it after work.  (He would not have sent Buddy to school like this.)  Sorry about the tongue hanging out, he was being a goofy kid.

The weather here has been beautiful.  My Little Guy and I go to the park as much as we can.  In this photo, he is studying a leaf he picked up.

Here in the U.S. it's Labor Day Weekend, which traditionally marks the end of summer.  We should have a few more warm weeks here before fall and winter arrive.  I plan to make the most of them.

Have a lovely weekend, and a happy week ahead.  Quilting makes a good day even better!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Frederique at Patchwork and Quilts