Many Hands Make Light Work, and a Scrap Tsunami

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

 

Technically, I managed to take an outdoor photo of this quilt now that it's finished.  The wind was terrible that day, it's a miracle I got to take it at all before the clothespins shot off the clothesline and I had to grab the quilt to keep it from falling.  Weird weather here lately.

Ah, that's better, safely inside.  You might remember this as a top I finished in December.  The charm squares were given to me by a friend at quilt guild.  I sewed them up, and added the border from stash.

Another friend, the Amazing Colleen, did the quilting on her long arm, and it turned out great!

Our guild supplied the batting and this colorful blue backing.  I did the binding, with pink binding also supplied by the guild and made by one of the members. 

Lots of us put our time and effort into finishing this quilt.  Many hands really do make light work!  It will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

 I didn't have a lot of time for sewing this week, but I am keeping up to date on my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  These are the Whirlygigs, made using Preeti Harris' tutorial. (Click HERE).  One of these prints is an Easter print with Snoopy and Charlie Brown.  Lately I decided to just go ahead and use holiday prints on my scrap quilts.  It's all fabric, right?

Wonderful and fun things happened this week!  The Winter Quilt Show in West Bend last Saturday was a highlight.  One of the vendors had these antique sewing machines for sale.  They were calling to me, but I didn't weaken.  I still have several and enjoy getting them out from time to time.

These ladies were documenting a lovely crazy quilt from the 1880s.  It was in very good condition, with very little shattered silk.

This was my favorite quilt in the show!  The maker wrote about her immigrant grandparents in her artist's statement.

This little quilt is inspiring me to make something similar with novelty print squares.  I haven't figured out just what yet.

I might have bought some fabric at the show.  But none of it cost over $10 per yard!

In Progress

The Farm Quilt is coming along well.  All the blocks are finished and set together, ready for the borders.  I'm taking a little time to decide which fabrics to use.  I'm glad to have several good choices.

Meanwhile, the green crumbs and strings are spread out all over as I work on February's final RSC set.

But, scraps got me sidetracked!!!

Wednesday night was our monthly guild meeting.  This scrap tsunami was on one of the tables.  The scraps were donated to the guild by someone in the community.  Our guild has quite a large stash of fabric yardage, but we have no room for scraps. We were encouraged to TAKE SCRAPS HOME.  Any not taken would be donated elsewhere.  Woo Hoo!!!

Look at all the cool stuff I snagged!  Plus the Amazing Colleen brought me some too.

All I can say is, the scraps made me do it!  This is what I did this morning, instead of working on all the other quilts in progress.  The block on the left above was in the scrap tsunami.  I really liked it.  It's like a big Bright Hopes block.  All of a sudden I decided to make a quilt like this, but using a charm square for a center instead of the original 5.5 in. square.  (The charm squares are trying to burst out of their plastic shoebox.  Must use them up!)  My practice block is the one on the right.

I already had the new-to-me scraps out, so I cut all the rectangles I could from them.  I chose non-novelty prints for these, mostly geometrics, knowing I would use novelties for the centers.  The rest of the needed rectangles were cut from my parts department.

All I have to do now is choose charm squares, and I can start sewing this quilt as leaders and enders.

So that was my week.  How was yours?  I hope you had at least as much fun as I did!  

Take care, and happy quilting!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday