Happy Variations

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

This week's story is a tale of two quilts.  

This one:

and this one:

(It was below zero when I photographed this one.  Of course it had to be an inside picture!)

There is definitely a family resemblance, but they're not exactly alike.  Both of them are variations on Happy Blocks quilts.

First up is this one, with a square in the center.  The only real difference from the usual Happy Block is the size of the center squares, which is 3.5 in. cut, instead of the more common 5 in. or 4.5 in..

Why so small?  Because this is what I started with!  The Amazing Colleen, a member of our quilt group's charity committee, brought me a lovely bunch of donated scraps and fabric, including these novelty squares.  The white edges were tiny and looked as though the blocks had been cut out of a top.  (No idea what the story was, sorry.)  I trimmed them to 3.5 in., which was the biggest I could get.

All that was left after trimming was a stack of 3.5 in. squares and this trash.

I framed each square with solid strips cut 2 in. wide, to make 6 in. finished blocks.  I hope it will be fun for kids to look at all the different prints.  They may need to have someone explain what phonograph records are.

The border is a Sesame Street print I bought at the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show in September.  The binding is a color I'm calling "Elmo red", it goes so well with that furry little guy.

The second quilt is actually made from Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt blocks from 2023.  I've been  thinking of different ways to set these very simple house blocks.  Framing them like Happy Blocks was an obvious choice.

I think of both of these quilts as I Spy quilts, since none of the novelty centers are repeated.  The houses are top-stitched to a 5 in. square, and then framed with 2 in. cut strips, making blocks that finish at 7.5 in.

Fun fact--There are two Dora's in the quilt:  Dora the Explorer (above) and D. W., Arthur's little sister from the Arthur books and TV show, whose full name is Dora Winifred Read (shown in the previous photo).

The house quilt's border is another Sesame Street print I bought from the same vendor.  The binding is the same "Elmo red" fabric.

Sometimes I think I should make bigger quilts more often.  Probably they'd be more useful.  But as a mother and grandmother I remember how nice it was to have small quilts to put on the floor for the babies.  And they were much easier to roll up and take with us on outings (the quilts, not the babies lol!).

Both of these quilts will be donated locally.

In other news, Buddy had his Christmas program at school.  There was lots of singing and excitement.  It always gives me a little boost of holiday spirit.  And the kids are adorable.  Especially our guy, of course!

I hope you're having a lovely week, and not stressing out too much about the holidays.  Maybe this holiday joke from my friend Debbie C. will help.  

What do you call an unidentified gingerbread man?  

John Dough

I laughed out loud at this one.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Melva at Sew and Tell

P.S.  The quilts I donated to the GSAFE auction brought in $510.00!  This year's goal of $40,000 was more than met.