Last of the Red Hot Projects?

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's the last red Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I have enjoyed making these 16 patch blocks.  I often make them in just two fabrics, using the quick and easy tutorial by Cynthia of Oh Scrap fame (Click HERE), but this year I'm making each square in each block a different fabric.  More variety, more fun!

For some reason that I can't remember, I started making 5 of these each month, so here's the other one.  I'm throwing in new prints, old prints, anything red.

Even the cell phone bag I made for my Mom is red!  (Click HERE for the YouTube tutorial I used.)

The lining is a red and cream print.  I adjusted the directions to use a Velcro closure instead of a snap, and even though I had to do a little ripping, it all worked out.

When I was hunting around the internet for a good cell phone bag tutorial, I found an easy one for these cell phone stands.  The directions were very straightforward and quick to make.  (Click HERE.)  The title says "beanbag" but there are no beans in these, just poly stuffing in the top and rice in the base.  I sent the one in the center to my Mom and kept the blue one to use in the kitchen and the sewing themed one in (where else?) the sewing room.

Lined up like this, they look like hats to me.  Wouldn't they be fun in red with a pompom on top for Christmas?

Speaking of hats, I've started knitting winter hats for kids again.  PBS used to have a yearly drive, so I got used to knitting hats and mittens while traveling in summer and fall.  It keeps my hands busy while waiting in airports or riding in a car.  I got these three done while visiting my Mom.  The handy Moda bag was a prize I won a few years ago as part of the Hands 2 Help quilt drive (thanks, Sarah!).

 At the beginning of this month, I made the red blocks for this baby quilt, and I've been using the rest of them as leaders and enders while doing other sewing.  The block is a Buckeye Beauty variation in a six inch size.  I snapped this photo of the layout, something I do often so I can refer to it if blocks get moved or turned around (looking at you, Snicklefritz!).

Yet more red, and one of the reasons more quilting is not getting done!  One of today's goals is to make these cherries into jam.  Wonder if there will be enough left for a pie?

And then there's the pickle relish, shown here with "some assembly required".  I always buy the "misfit" pickles, since I'm just chopping them up anyway and they don't need to be pretty.  Neither do the peppers, which suffered some hail damage in a storm this week.

This is lots to do, I'd better get on it!

One last red photo, of Buddy and Snicklefritz, two of my favorite guys.

Have a lovely week, doing the things you love to do!  Happy quilting!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

 

Strawberry Red

 Welcome to Treadlestitches, and welcome to July! 

The color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month is red, which is absolutely the perfect color for July.  It's strawberry season here in Wisconsin!  It took me about an hour and a half to pick this these berries at a local farm last weekend.  They were made into two batches of strawberry jam plus a little left over to eat.

Time in the sewing room was mostly spent cutting, but I got a little piecing done too.  There were some red scraps in the big pile I've been cutting up, so I could add some new-to-me fabrics to the old favorites for this Bricks project.  Somehow I never seem to have enough red.
 

The panda print came from a scrap bag I got from a vendor at a quilt show.  I got the dragonfly fabric from a rummage sale.

Does this happen to you?  Often when I'm cutting up scraps I start thinking about new projects to make with them!  (Even though I already have a few (cough, cough) projects in progress already!)  These Buckeye Beauty blocks will be a (you guessed it!) baby quilt, this one with a nautical theme.

What about a summer theme, and a block I've always wanted to try?  The very boring name for this block is Mosaic #3.  It was first published in the Ladies Art Company catalog, but has been used in quilts since the 1800s.  Quilt author Judy Gauthier has a clever way to make it in her book Quilts for Scrap Lovers.  You know I LOVE clever ways to make blocks, so I tried it out and it worked perfectly!  The background fabric was a scrap from the big pile, and made me think about sipping iced tea and eating watermelon.  I already had the green bug print squares.  

I think this pattern will work well in my happy novelty scraps, and also in my 1800s reproduction prints.

Speaking of happy novelties, these happy blocks are ready to sew.  I'm using charm squares with light backgrounds in the centers and red prints as the frames.  These squares are so cute I just couldn't cut them up.  Now I don't have to!

The weather this year has been all over the place, but it seems to finally be settling down into hot, appropriate for summer.  We've been indoors a lot this week because of the smoke from the Canadian wild fires, but yesterday skies were clearer so we ventured outside.  Little Guy had fun playing in the water with elephants and hippos and all sorts of other toy animals.  I mostly sat in the shade with the aforementioned iced tea.

Buddy is excited about helping pick berries!  Our little strawberry patch is worth all the work of weeding it, and more.  This is one day's haul.  Sadly, the season is short, and will probably be over a week from now, so we have to enjoy it while we can.
 

Here's another way to enjoy it:  Strawberry Sherbet.  It's an easy recipe with ingredients we usually have on hand.

Strawberry Sherbet

2 cups washed, hulled and pureed strawberries

2 cups Low Fat Milk (I use 2%)

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons lemon juice

Combine all ingredients, and process in an ice cream maker.  (I use a manual Donvier ice cream maker, fast and easy).

Makes about 1 quart.

Note:  When it's done, I freeze the sherbet in individual serving-sized plastic containers.  At dessert time, I put the sherbet in a microwave safe bowl and zap it for 20 seconds to soften it up.

Happy 4th of July to fellow Americans this week!  The antique quilt above is from the Ken Burns collection, which was on display at Quilt Expo last year.  
 

Have a good 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

New Years Resolutions, More or Less

Oh Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I love you!  Here are my Buckeye Beauty blocks, laid out on the floor and ready to be set together.  This will be one of the quilts I hope to finish in the new year.

I organized the blocks into groups of 4, except for the last row.  There are 72 blocks, 8 across and 9 down.

1930s fabrics and feedsacks worked well together.  I have a couple of matching print feedsacks for the eventual border.
So that's one of the quilts.  Here's the other:

The house blocks are waiting patiently for inspiration.  I want this to be a fantastic neighborhood, and I don't know exactly what I'm going to do yet.

Streets?  Grass?  Trees? What would you do?

 Happy New Year to everyone!  With 2018 fast approaching, it's a good time to reflect on 2017, and think about what we want from our lives and our quilting next year.  I do this every year--well, more or less.
Frankly, my New Years resolutions are usually not worth the paper they're written on.  For instance, I might decide to try to become slender and gorgeous next year by not eating any chocolate cake.  But the minute I make that a resolution, all I can think about is chocolate cake.  That resolution wouldn't last out the week.
Instead, I set goals, and use the terms "more" or "less".  In this case, my goal will be to eat more fruits, more vegetables, and more whole grains, and less cake.  I have a shot of making this actually happen.  Similarly, I can aim for more exercise and less television watching, and more time with family, less time cruising the internet.
This last year I finished 35 quilts.  That counts everything, from doll size to large size.  Of the 35, 19 were baby quilts, mostly for charity.  I quilted 33 of the total 35 myself, and a friend quilted the other two, both twin sized quilts.
So I don't really expect to make MORE quilts in 2018, especially since I have less time.  What I need is more BALANCE between piecing and quilting.

Here's my list of "more" for 2018.
More quilting of larger quilts
More scraps cut and organized
More quilt shows attended
More fun with other quilters

And on the "less" list:
Less fabric I can't think of a use for (I'm gonna donate it!)
Less worrying about UFOs
Less making things just because other people are making them

On the whole, I guess you can tell I'm very happy with my quilting.  This is such a rewarding hobby, and I have met so many nice people through quilts, in person and online.
People like you!  Thanks for reading this.
Happy New Year!
Sylvia@Treadlestitches
Linking up with Busy Hands Quilts and Crazy Mom Quilts.

All Kinds of Yellow

June is yellow month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I have all my blocks done!  I don't usually manage to do these so early in the month.
First, the houses.

Here's a cheery little cherry house, must be in Door County.  I had enough Badger fabric left for the sky.

This one is a quilter's house.  For some reason, there is a duckie in the doorway.

Butterflies and whales live here.  Not sure how, but that's their problem.

Every neighborhood has to have that wild and crazy house.

This house is made of honey.  A bear scout is apparently watching over it from the roof.

Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees...the bee house, that is, with birds on the roof and butterflies in the sky and on the door.

And lastly, more bugs!  Happy, smiling bugs!  NOT the kind that lurk under the sink.

I am loving this project more every month!
I do confess to being sad when I run out of a particular fabric.  Oh, well, they'll make more.

Here are this month's Buckeye Beauty blocks:

Four together...

and four more.  I actually could set them like this.  Hmmm...

Most of these blocks were made from 1930s reproduction fabrics, like the one above.

This super-pale block is made from yellow feedsacks.

And this block is a hybrid--feedsack for the triangles and repro for the squares.

Many, many thanks to the soscrappy blog for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and all the fun we're having.

In other news, I've managed to get some gardening done on days my baby grandson is not here.

There are tomato and kale plants in pots on the porch.  Do you see the fabric strip?  I've tied the tomato plant to the wire cage with a strip from a rag.  My grandmother used to do it this way.  I always feel close to her when I work in the garden.

Have a wonderful, quilt-filled week!
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

I'm linking up with Myra at Busy Hands Quilts and Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts.  Join the party!

It's a Green World

Rainbow Scrap Challenge time!  Just in time for (nearly) the end of the month, I've finished my blocks for May, in scraps of green.  First, the little houses.

Some of the blocks are kind of plain, although this one does have dinosaurs in the sky...

And this one is sweet enough to give you a cavity.

Two of the houses have frogs, like this one who is waving and saying hi...

and this house is totally made up of frogs staring at you.  Not creepy at all.

Still on the reptiles/amphibians theme, here's the turtle house.

My favorite this month is the ladybug house.

After all the cats in the other houses I've made, I needed to have some dog fabric in here somewhere.  There are rabbits in the sky, and the door is a cat print without any visible cats.

Last but not least, I had to work the Packers in.  I think there's some kind of law in Wisconsin about respect for the Packers.  It has nothing to do with how well they're playing, the Pack is beloved always.
I really had to hunt to find green 1930s repro fabrics and/or feedsacks for the Buckeye Beauty blocks  Here they are:

Some of these greens are very pale, but I think they'll contrast well with some of the brighter blocks in other colors.  At least, I hope so.

This is my favorite block using the repro fabrics.

My all-time favorite feedsack is in the large triangles in this block.  It has a Hawaiian theme.  Can you see where it spells out Waikiki? 

Here's a bad closeup of another part of this feedsack, pieced into a different block.  This time there's a surfer! 
For years I just hoarded this feedsack, thinking it was too precious to use.  Finally, I'm over that!  I have moved on to Cut It Up and Use It Now.

Once I got my RSC blocks done for the month, something came over me, and I started piecing scrap triangles into these blocks.  I don't have a pattern, and I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but it's fun using up scraps.  I always need to have something to piece during my baby grandson's naps.

How are you RSC projects coming along?  I have loved reading about them in the weekly linky parties.  Does anybody ever end up with too many blocks?  I'm kind of thinking that could happen to me.
Cheers to all this week,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches