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.

Q is for Quilt

 Welcome to Treadlestitches! 

And welcome to November!  I guess it really is fall now, although the grass is still green under the fallen leaves.

A lovely lady in my quilt group gave me an alphabet panel to make into a charity quilt.  I paired it with the red bears print , a second-hand find.  

It's a good thing there were two full alphabets on the panel, because it was very difficult to cut the letters apart and leave enough seam allowance.  Some of the letters were too close to the edge, or too close to other letters.  In the end I only had to fix one the letter, the Y, by adding a strip of white fabric cut from the panel.

T is for turtle, U is for Umbrella, and of course Q is for Quilt!  I did some simple outline quilting on the squares, and parallel lines in the borders.  The binding is the same fabric as the inner border.

Check out the back!  A few weeks ago Hubby and I went antiquing, and I found this print.  There are crayons, hearts, balloons, and, best of all, alphabets.  I hope a little child enjoys this quilt as much as I loved making it.

Did you have a good Halloween?  Our little grandsons definitely did.  Buddy is dressed as his favorite video game character, Link from Legend of Zelda.  Little Guy went as Pikachu, his favorite Pokemon.  After trick or treating, Buddy says he has enough candy now for a year.  

 Last year I made lots of these little houses for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  They're the simplest thing ever, just a 5 in. square with one seam across the top to make a point.  To me, they look like the kind of houses young children draw.  I made one quilt, but had lots of the houses left over.  (Click HERE for more info, my first post about them last January.) 

 By coincidence, I bought this glue stick when visiting with my friend Joey (hi, Joey!  We had such a fun day!) It's made by the same people that make a basting spray I use often.  The glue stick turned out to be just the thing I needed.  I'm using it to stick the little houses to a background 5 in. square so I can topstitch them down.  Works like a charm.

Next I'm adding solid strips all around to make a block I'm calling Happy Houses.  Of course I picked out the Halloween ones to do first!  Ghosts ...

and scary costumes.  The blocks finish at 7.5 in.  

It's been a happy busy beginning of fall.  Last Saturday we went on a short hike with our eldest daughter, her hubby, and our grandkids Mr. H and Miss E.  It was beautiful weather, just a little crisp with lots of sunshine.  (That's me in the back, where I like to be!  Mr. H just refuses to be in photos, so he took the picture.)

From the trail we could see this church, the Basilica and National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, high on the hill above us.  Another wonderful day.

I hope you have wonderful days too, this week and every week.  Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Cynthia at Oh Scrap