Little Bricks, Skinny Little Bricks, and Crayons

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

How is everything in your quilty world?

I am feeling like this little minion today!  I have finishes and an almost-finish to share!

First is this little 8 patch quilt I started back in the summer.  It's an idea I stole from Cathy at Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting.  (I get a lot of good ideas that way!  She's a scrap genius!  Thanks, Cathy!) 

The blocks are made of 8 rectangles that measure 2.5 in. x 3.5 in. cut.  These are the pieces I call Little Bricks, and I have a whole box of them.   I often cut them from the last bits of a 2.5 in. strip.

The block itself is 6 in. x 8 in. finished, which makes for some interesting math when figuring out the layout.  I set my 30 blocks 6 across and 5 down, which made the little quilt 36 in. x 40 in. before the border.

Here's the back, a kid print from the stash.  I honestly don't remember where it came from.  It might have been in the amazing basket my quilt group gave me.  It can be hard to use prints like this that have straight lines in them, but may not be printed exactly straight, and can look wonky.  However, they are perfect for backing.  All of these adorable kids are saying, "Let's play!"

On to Finish #2.

This is a Bright Hopes variation.  I started making these blocks to use up my stack of 2 in. x 3.5 in. rectangles (I call them Skinny Little Bricks.)

Each of the big blocks is made up of 4 smaller ones.  Each of the small blocks has a light 2 in. (cut) square center and 4 rectangles surrounding it, and finishes at 4.5 in.  After I had a lot of them made I started arranging them like this, putting pieces with the same color together to make a sort of pinwheel in the middle.  Sometimes the pinwheel is easy to see, sometimes there's not enough contrast.

The blocks are set with a narrow sashing and green print cornerstones.  I did very simple quilting (as usual) with the serpentine stitch on my machine.

The border is this odd print.  It looks like illustrations from a 1930s children's book.  I loved that it said "Sweet Dreams".  I said that to my kids when tucking them in at night, and back in the day my mother said it to me.

Simple quilting again.  For binding, I chose a blue/green from my solids stash.  The backing is this cozy flannel.  I love flannel on the back of a quilt.

When I go to sales or flea markets, etc., flannel is always something I look for.  This pile came from the sale room at a recent quilt show.  I piled it all in a grocery bag for $10.

I got this box of flannel at our guild's silent auction last month.  Solid colors are always useful, but the ducky prints are the best!

So on to the almost-finish.  Back in October, I was trying to put my Rainbow Scrap Challenge crayon quilt top together.  I had gotten this far, but it didn't look finished, and I really didn't know what to do.  

Some readers had really good suggestions.  I also asked a couple of other quilters at the retreat two weeks ago.  I ended up making a row of small crayons for the top (thanks, Bonnie Jensen!).  I also cut down the original borders so I'd have enough to use that colorful print on the sides as well.  And I had just barely enough of the print left for the top border.

Here's what it looks like now.  It's definitely unusual, but it feels more balanced to me.  And bonus, it's now a rectangle, measuring 53 in. x 55 in.   I'll bind with a solid color after I quilt it.

The small crayon row is very similar to the big crayons.  I used the Tri-Recs tools to make the points and rectangles to make up the rest of the crayon.

I might make a whole quilt from these little crayons someday.  They're easy and fun to make.

We like to have fun around here!  My Little Guy is in charge of licking the beaters when I make icing.  He takes his job very seriously.

When we get our chores done, we can play with toy dinosaurs stomping in play dough.  

I hope you're having fun this week.  Treat yourself to a good time!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap