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

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

August is Aqua

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Well, look what "grew" in my garden this week!  It's a little nine patch quilt, ready to be donated.

Most of the 2.5 in. (unfinished) squares came from a bag I picked up on the free table at our quilt guild.  There were lots of solid and print squares, so it made sense to combine them.  I call this one Nine Patch A and B, because there are two kinds of blocks.  Block A has 5 solid squares and 4 print squares, and Block B has 5 print squares and 4 solids.

The border is a Sesame Street print.  This is what was left after I used it on a previous quilt.  Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Zoe are skating and jumping rope etc., having a good time outside.

The binding is made from a scrap!  I had to piece seven strips together for a quilt 36 in. x 42 in., but it was worth it to use up the scrap and get this color.  From now on I'm calling this shade Elmo Red.  The back came from the big sale at the museum.

The quilting is my usual serpentine stitch in a two inch grid.  Mrs. Pfaff and I are on a roll finishing up some small tops.

August is aqua!  It's the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.  My aquas seem to divide into greenish ones and blueish ones, so I made blocks of each.  Above are the greenish aqua Bright Hopes blocks, 6 in. finished.

These are the blueish Bright Hopes.  Lots of fish, bugs, frogs, and even Hello Kitty.

There were some fun fabrics to piece into big bowties, too, like dinosaurs and Scooby Doo.

More fish here, even Baby Shark (sorry if that brings up an earworm for you like it does for me!).

It was just like potato chips, I couldn't stop making Bow Ties.  Some of these were not strictly aqua, but it won't matter when they're put into quilts.

Favorite block of the week:

I had never seen this fabric before.  I just love that frog with a banjo.  You never know what fun prints you're going to find when you collect scraps!

My little rascals went to Vacation Bible School this week.  They're posing in a pretend magnifying glass.

After VBS on Thursday we went to a park with lots of structures to climb on.  Buddy is getting ready to launch himself onto some monkey bars.

Little Guy got into the act, too.  It was good for them to get out and get some exercise, after being stuck indoors due to the rain on Wednesday.

I'm glad to have made some inroads on the UFOs and RSC blocks this week, since I don't know how much I will be able to do next week.  I have unfortunately acquired a summer cold.  I rate it 0/10, would not recommend.  Avoid it if you can!

Have a lovely week!  I hope it's filled with all the things you love to do.  Including quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

DrEAMi Bordered Square, a Heart, and Purple Blocks

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Do you keep a list of quilts you plan to make?  I do.  I even have it written on a whiteboard in my sewing room.  Somehow I never keep to that schedule, because something always comes along to make me drop everything and make it (a condition called DrEAMi that often afflicts quilters). Bordered Square, above, is one of those DrEAMi projects. This top was so much fun to make, it didn't even seem like patch-work.  

The inspiration came from this book, Quilts from the Heart, by Karin Renaud.  I bought it at the Humane Society rummage sale at the end of May.  The book is filled with great ideas, but the Bordered Square pattern sent me straight to my boxes of cut squares to start making blocks.

The blocks are simple to make.  The center is a 4.5 in. cut square, surrounded by 12 squares cut 2.5 in.  All the centers are novelty prints.  The blocks in the book used novelty prints with darker backgrounds.  I used lighter ones instead for more contrast.

I liked the author's use of random bright squares as cornerstones.  Instead of solid white, I used a print for the sashing because it was more fun.  It's a heart print, and I always like to include hearts in the donation quilts I make for kids.

I love having a good pattern and inspiration for a quilt, but also making some small changes to do it my way.  My quilt has 30 blocks instead of 20, and I also skipped the inner border.  I will be donating the top to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.  The organizer will quilt it, and it will be given to a child.

Check out the border!  I got this colorful kitty fabric at the museum sale last month and just loved it.  It seemed perfect for this quilt, but I only had just over half a yard, and I was afraid it wouldn't be enough.  I did the math several times but didn't really trust myself (not a math person sadly).  

It worked!  All I have left of the kitty fabric is one 2.5 in. strip, two 3.5 in. squares, and this heart block I made with the last of it.

Purple blocks were happening here for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I can't wait to see everybody else's blocks in the linky parties.  Here are mine!

Bright Hopes:

And Thrifty:

And my favorite block of the week:

There's a flying girl frog in the center square!  Of course it's my favorite!

The stacks of RSC blocks are getting taller!  I'm looking forward to making them into tops.

In other news, I've been spending lots of time with my youngest grandsons this summer.

They're "helping" me pick black raspberries.  Not much help since they eat all they pick, but it's a great snack for them and something they look forward to.

Buddy and I have been going to the park every morning while Little Guy is at a playground program.  In the photo above, he's testing his American Ninja Warrior skills.

This morning, I'm going to a meeting at the Quilt Museum, so I'd better get going.  Have a lovely week, everyone.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Scrappy Sewing and Summer Memories

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Hello!  Lizzie would like to show you a quilt today.  I think she's gotten jealous of her brother Snicky being The Cat Who Poses on Quilts. 

Our finish is this Bright Hopes quilt.  I showed the top in May, but couldn't quilt it until Mrs. Pfaff came back from the shop.  It measures about 42 in. x 48 in., and will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center for a child to take home.

About 2/3 of the rectangles in the quilt came from a bag of cut pieces donated to our guild by Mr. M, a gentleman who once managed a fabric store.  I supplied the rest from my "collection".  There were so many fun fabrics in the bag, like monkeys, Ritz crackers, parrots, and quite a few shamrocks for St. Patrick's day.

I think Mr. M might be a Cubs fan!  I still have lots of these rectangles left.  

This is the back.  It was not quite wide enough, so I sewed a strip in the middle.

Here's a closeup of the backing.  As you can see, I quilted a simple 2 in. grid over the blocks.  Take a look at the print.  Notice anything odd about the clothes on the line?

I bought the backing fabric second hand.  It just looked like clothes hanging on the clothesline to me until I looked at the selvedge, and saw the name.  Winter Gnomes?  Oh, the red things are gnome hats!  I didn't even notice before, just thought these were cute clothes.  I love fun fabrics like this.

June is almost over!  I had a little panic over that, and even though it was a busy week made time to finish my orange blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Thank goodness these Radio Windmill blocks are fast and easy.

Favorite blocks!

Orange monkey!

And whatever this is!  Maybe an orange bear?  From a cartoon?  You never know what you're going to find when buying second hand fabric.

Thank goodness I finished the Sisters Choice blocks last weekend.  Now I can start July all caught up.  Our color for July is PURPLE!  My favorite color!

My favorite block from this set uses some of the Halloween squares I got at the last guild meeting.

There goes Little Guy, driving again.  This time he's part of a program called Safety Town.  They learn about how to be safe in cars, on the bus, at the pool, etc.  They have fun field trips to the fire station and a vet's office and the police station.

Yesterday he graduated from the program.  His big Buddy was proud of him.  So were we!

I took a photo of this banner at the school where Safety Town is held.  Isn't it great?

Thursday morning while the boys were at their activities I picked strawberries at the local U Pick place.  Such a delicious part of summer!  I need to start taking the boys with me to pick, even though I know we won't get as much done.  It's good for kids to know where food comes from, and I have lots of good memories of picking with family.  

Do you have good summer memories?  I hope so.  And good winter ones too!  Have a wonderful week, everyone, and Happy Independence Day to all in the U.S.A.

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap