Two Donations, Twelve Blocks, and a Day at the Shore

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's a lovely sunny morning, the first day of Labor Day Weekend here in the U.S.  I'm getting back on track after having been on vacation, finishing these two little quilts for donation.

The first one is an I Spy.  From the look of it, you might think I pieced it, (you know how I love novelty prints!), but I didn't!  Both tops came from a generous lady, who met our own Nancy Queen of Scraps at a thrift shop.  They got to talking, and the lady had made dozens of tops during the pandemic (we can all relate, can't we?).  She ended up donating the tops to our group to finish and donate to charities.  I did the quilting and binding on these two.

It was so much fun to work on!  Every square (72 total) was different, and lots of them were prints I had never seen before.

For sure, there had to be a Green Bay Packers square!

The back is a 1930s print with toys, and the binding is a sewing print, both from my Endless Stash.  More novelty prints equals more fun!

The second quilt is a little calmer.  Our generous quilter made 4 patches in two shades of blue, paired with alternate blocks cut from a fabric with ducks, bunnies, rocking horses, and a bear (just one bear).

I think the alternate fabric comes from the 1980s-1990s, it looks very familiar.  The quilt will be a nice addition to a nursery.

The back is another 1930s repro print of toys on light blue.  I quilted a 3 in. grid with serpentine stitch, and added a tan binding to go with the cute animals.  

I'm not sure exactly which charity will get these quilts, but I'm sure they will be loved.

In other news, aqua!

Aqua is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for September.  (Can you believe it's September already??)  Until I started participating in the RSC, I didn't use aqua much.  I had a problem with it.  It's a mix of blue and green, right, but some fabrics look more blue and some more green, so it can be hard to define.  Are they blue, or green, or aqua?  For some reason, this stressed me out.  I don't stress about it anymore, I just relax and enjoy all the colors, and really look for aqua in stores and sales.

You can't go wrong with rainbows and sunshine!

And happy dinosaurs!

Now for something completely ridiculous.  Why do I pile stuff up so high you can't even see the basket?  And how has this not fallen over?  I'm using solid scraps in a quilt I'm making with my grandson Buddy (more on that as we progress), so I finally noticed this problem.

Whew, that's better.  One tiny mess straightened up.  This basket only holds smaller pieces of solids now.  The strips are filed in the drawers, the larger yardage goes in the basement, and I can actually see what I have.  (I might need to buy some red, don't you think?  And maybe yellow?)

 Our youngest grandsons had a day off school and preschool yesterday, so we spent the morning at the Lake Michigan shore.  The water is far too cold for swimming (I think), but we had fun wading and looking for interesting rocks.  I found a couple of small pieces of "beach glass", really just pieces of old beer bottles made smooth by the waves. 

We found this driftwood structure someone had piled up.  The boys decided it was a house and had fun playing in it.  Buddy kept dragging more logs over to make it bigger.

We had a picnic lunch and the boys played on the playground.  Little Guy had a very happy day, can you tell?  Sorry about the photo quality, the sunlight was intense.

Buddy is great at posing for photos, even though I'm not great at taking them!  

If you've ever taken kids near water, you can guess both of them got their clothes wet.  I brought dry shorts for them, but didn't bring shirts, so when Buddy got hit by a big wave and got completely soaked, he had to wear his sweatshirt as a shirt.  Next time, shirts!  And socks!

On vacation in Oxford a few weeks ago, this motto of the University was everywhere:  Dominus Illuminatio Mea, which means The Lord is My Light.  If I had a Latin motto, I think it would be Tempus Fugit, usually translated as Time Flies.  

Time is always flying.  Let's enjoy it while we may.

Thanks for reading!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these lovely bloggers:

Angela at So Scrappy

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Cynthia at Oh Scrap