Flying Geese, Radio Windmill blocks, and the End of the Summer

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

No outdoor photos today, sadly.  The sun is out, but so are the mosquitos.  Ever since the flood they've been getting worse, to the point that swarms of them descend on us just coming in from the car.  Apparently we live in a swamp now.  It even rained a little more last night.

Other than the pesky mosquitos I have very little to complain about.  Most mornings this week I was able to spend at least a half hour sewing before the grandsons arrived, which makes every day even better.  Part of my progress was finishing this little top.

I don't know the name of the block, and couldn't find it in Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.  If you know, please tell me!  I made the flying geese last year for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and made them into blocks earlier this month.

This project was an experiment.  I came across the directions for the 3-D flying geese in Mary Ellen Hopkin's classic book, It's Okay If You Sit On My Quilt.  She called it Loose Goose.  (Click HERE for my first post on this.)  I wasn't sure what I would do with these geese, but I could practically hear Mary Ellen saying, "Go on, give it a try!"  So I did.

I have to say right now that I do not ever plan to make flying geese this way again.  

Here are my reasons.

1.  It's fiddly.  There is only one seam, which is dead easy, but then it needs to be carefully ironed to come out right.  It might help to have three hands when doing this.

2.  It adds bulk.  Just what we want, more bulk?  Take a look at the back of the quilt top.

3.  I mostly make quilts for kids, so this should have occurred to me, but the blocks being 3-D means loose flaps that might not hold up to multiple machine washings.  To fix this before I set the blocks into the quilt, I top stitched all the loose edges (the short sides of the triangles) down.   3-D which was meant to be a feature was now a bug that required extra work.

I like the look of the quilt, and I'm glad to be using up most of the blocks I made.  I don't regret trying something new, but it's not a technique I want to repeat.  Just my humble opinion, of course.

I do like this set!  There are six vertical rows, with five blocks and five sashings each.  The blocks are 6 in. finished and the quilt will finish at 42 in. x 48 in.  I will donate it to the Children's Advocacy Center.

I'm not sure what a Radio Windmill is, but my Radio Windmill blocks are done for the RSC for August.  These are the left-leaning ones.

And now the right leaning ones!  It was a challenge to find center squares.  I wanted light backgrounds with at least some aqua in the print.  The pieces on the outside helped me use up some of my aqua big scraps.

We had a good week here.  I'm especially happy about that because it was our last week with the kids before they go back to school.  Buddy invented a concoction he calls Sprinkle Pie.  It's a combination of plain yoghurt, blueberries, strawberries, a little sugar, and sprinkles.  He's very proud of it as you can see, and later made some more for his brother.

We went to Discovery World in Milwaukee yesterday, and it was wonderful.  Little Guy especially liked the Curious George section, which is huge.  

All these monkeys had a good time!  And so did I.  

Buddy loved the aquarium best, and even got to touch a ray and another fish.  Little Guy was not tall enough to reach the fish in the "touch me" tank, but later both boys got to gently touch a turtle.

We have had a good summer, but I can't say I'm sorry the fall is coming.  I still get to see the boys after school for an hour or two per day, and I'll have more time to do things besides babysitting.  Like quilting!

Have a wonderful week ahead, whatever you do.  Happy quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge