Green Blocks, Pink Quilts, & Back From the Quilter, Part 1

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

I'm having fun with green scraps this week.  These are my Big Scrappy Bricks blocks, inspired by a pattern at Maryquilts.com called Forest Bricks (click HERE).  I've got a real thing for brick quilts right now, in all sizes.  These blocks are great for some fun novelty prints.

I am not a fan of snakes, but this print doesn't even creep me out.  Much. (My grand kids tease me about this.  They actually LIKE snakes. <shudder>)

Moving on from reptiles, I finished the little pink quilts I was working on last week.

The flannel rail fence quilt, shown here wrapped around my Little Guy's stuffed dog, will go to Jack's Basket to celebrate a baby with Down's Syndrome.

Here's the back, two adorable dogs in a heart, that says Puppy Love.  Another second-hand flannel find.

More pink!  I have never made this many pink quilts at one time before.  And there's one more still in the works!  This little nine patch was easy and fun to make, and uses some cute prints.

The fabric in the alternate plain blocks is a print I call Flying Donuts.  I had it left over from another baby quilt.  All that's left now are small scraps.

The back is this nostalgic baby toys print, also bought second-hand.  The quilt will be donated, but I'm not sure where yet.

So that's what I've been sewing this week. 

Last week, I showed you a pile of quilts (folded inside out)  I just got back from my friend Joey Mayhieu, who is a fabulous long arm quilter.  I quilt most of my quilts myself, especially the baby quilts that are easy to do on a domestic machine.   I also do simple grid quilting on larger quilts and quilt-as-you-go.  But sometimes there are special tops that just need professional quilting, and that's when I turn to Joey.

I was over the moon when she brought me three quilts I had given her to work on in October, and I can't wait to show them to you.  But I think each quilt needs its own write-up, so I'll do one this week, one next week, and one the week after. 

Back From the Quilter, Part 1:  Star Medallion

In January 2015, quilt historian Barbara Brackman started a series on her Civil War Quilts blog called Stars in A Time Warp.  Each Wednesday, she discussed a different kind of fabric or print from the past (like shirting prints, Prussian Blue, etc.).  Participants could follow along and make 6 in. star blocks from reproduction fabrics.  (It's still up!  Click HERE for the first week.)

It was so much fun to learn about all kinds of fabrics, and hunt through my reproductions to make the stars.  I could hardly wait for Wednesday each week.  Eventually I made enough blocks for two quilts.  Joey quilted the first quilt for me in 2017.  (Click HERE to see it.)

This is the top I made in Feb. 2016.  The first quilt contained the blocks with reproduction fabrics from the last half of the 1800s.  This quilt has repros from the first half, 1800-1850.  I set it in a medallion, a classic style from that time period.  Joey and I together decided on the quilting, to have it in keeping with what was done in this era.  (Joey is very knowledgeable about antique quilts BTW.)

The center is this bird, a copy of a Hewson print.  Joey quilted it with a cross hatch.

Each "round" of the medallion has separate quilting.  I absolutely love this organic form in the inner star round.

Here you can see part of the spirals in the last round of stars, and the graceful feather turning the corner on the border.

The back is this green pillar print--classical columns printed lengthwise on the fabric.  I had just barely enough of this fabric, but Joey made it work. (I used some for an inner border before I knew I wanted it for the back!  Oops!)

If you have your quilts quilted by others, you know a good long-armer is worth her/his weight in gold!  This quilt turned out even better than I imagined, and I know I could not have done it myself.  So many thanks again to Joey for her talents and time!

Next week, a basket quilt.

Somebody had a birthday!  And of course it was all about trains.  Big brother was a good helper.

Snicklefritz is really growing.  Do you think I need to get him a bigger bed?

Have a good week, everyone!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Stars and Orange

Happy Friday!  It's a crisp fall day here, but mostly sunny.  This is my Stars in a Time Warp quilt, #1.
I wrote about piecing it HERE.
How new/old does something have to be before it's a UFO?  If it's less than a year, does it still count as a UFO?
I finished this top last February, and it just waited patiently to be quilted.  My friend Joey did the quilting on her long arm.  She did a wonderful Baptist Fan all over design, which she does freehand.  (Joey is amazing.)  All I had to do was make the binding and sew it on.

The backing came from my stash, a nice repro I bought on sale at J. J. Stitches in Sun Prairie.

I really wanted to bind it in red, but I'm trying to give other colors a chance.  This binding is a brown/red paisley print.

Look--orange!  This block has cheddar corners!  I am having a real love affair with orange.
It just so happens orange is the color for September for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.
Here's what I've been making for that.
First, the house blocks.

There are 9 of these this month.

Candy corn house, made with fabric given to me by a friend (thanks, Mary Z!)

School bus house.   I think a crazy bus lady lives here, driven nutty by noisy kids.

Party house!

Can you see the sky above this house?  It's from a scrap of Route 66 fabric I got at a flea market.  On the right it says Chicago in orange letters, and on the left is Oklahoma City (mostly caught in the seam allowance).  We live near Chicago, and my mom lives in Oklahoma City, so I just had to use these pieces.

The rest of the houses are tropical, with lots of yummy orange.
Now for the Buckeye Beauty blocks.  I got carried away, and made 11 of them.

This group of 6 fabrics didn't want to play nicely with others, so they are just paired with white.

I think these animals are dogs?  Maybe Corgis?

Halloween fun!

These 5 were more friendly, so I could use 2 prints and white.

Orange fish from a feed sack!

Autumn leaves from a feed sack scrap, plus odd orange shapes in the 4 patches.
I think orange is my new favorite color.
Whatever color is your favorite, I hope you get to sew with it this week.
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Today's link ups are:
Busy Hands Quilts
Crazy Mom Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Living in the Past

I love history.  I love quilts.  So naturally, I love quilt history.  And by that I mean REAL quilt history, based on facts and scholarship.
One of our most famous quilt historians is Barbara Brackman.  Her Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns is used as the definitive reference for most of the quilt documentation projects which are digitized at the Quilt Index.  She also has a terrific blog.  Here's the link:  Barbara Brackman's Material Culture
I had been neglecting my blog reading for a while, and just stumbled across something wonderful last November.  It was Barbara Brackman's Stars in A Time Warp Quiltalong.  It started in January of 2015, and featured a post per week on different fabrics and prints in quilt history.
It was like taking an in-depth class, for free!  Each week participants made 6 in. star blocks using reproduction fabrics of the type featured in the blog post.
Since I started late, I could progress through the lessons at my own pace.  I rooted through all my scraps and yardage, looking for just the right pieces.  I unearthed fabric from the basement, digging for treasure.  My sewing room looked like a bomb went off.
And here is the result:

This is quilt #1.  It's a medallion set, with most of the fabrics reproducing the earlier part of the 19th Century.  The center is the bird block at the top of this post.  The bird is a reproduction of a chintz made by John Hewson of Philadelphia.

It's not a big quilt, which would have been more typical of this time period, but it fits a twin bed.

It was so much fun choosing the fabrics!  The center of the star above came from a scrap of curtain fabric I bought at a flea market.

Many of these fabrics have been in my repro stash for years.

This border is from 2000!

So that's the first quilt.  Here's the second one:

It was hard to get it all in one photo.  There are borders on all four sides, BTW.

Most of these reproduction fabrics copy the last half of the 19th Century.  I tried to use 4 fabrics in each block for the sake of variety.

The center of the blue block above is a toile with scenes from the life of Abraham Lincoln.  The fabric in the corners of the Lincoln star shows clasped hands and says The Union For Ever.

Stars in A Time Warp is still up!  Here's the link:  Stars in A Time Warp

So how am I going to quilt them?  I think I want quilting designs that work with the time periods.  Got any ideas?  I'd love to know what you'd do.  Leave a suggestion in the comments.

In other news, there's a "new" old sewing machine in my sewing room.

This is my Singer 9W.  She's been on a shelf in the basement for a few years, waiting for her turn to get back to work.
I had of course cleaned and oiled her and got her sewing when I first bought her, but this is her real shake-down cruise.
The Singer 9W is a sort of hybrid between a Wheeler and Wilson and a Singer.  In fact, she mostly takes after the Wheeler and Wilson side.  Singer took over the Wheeler and Wilson factories after they went out of business in 1905, and produced the 9W until around 1913.  So my machine is at least 100 years old.
The good news is, she works very well!  She has a nice consistent stitch, and so far not a smidge of tension troubles.  However, there are some things that I'm having to get used to.  For instance, the hand wheel turns AWAY from you, like a White, not like a Singer.  And the bobbins are very interesting.

The Singer 9W takes a round, flat bobbin.  This shows it in place.

This is what it looks like when you take the bobbin out.  It's hard to see here (not a good photo), but the bobbin goes in on a little lever, which you close when the bobbin is in place.

Winding the bobbins is a tad primitive.  You guide the thread onto the bobbin with your fingers, moving it gently back and forth to fill the bobbin evenly.  It reminds me of the Singer model 12 in this aspect.
In the photo above, you can see two bobbins on the machine bed.  The nearer one is an old bobbin, original to the machine.  I have 2 old bobbins, plus some newer ones originally made for a Featherweight.  Some of the Featherweight bobbins work, and some don't, because they are just a tiny bit too big to go in the machine.

I'm a 21st Century woman, and I really wouldn't have it any other way.  I like being able to vote, having better health care, occasional airplane travel, radio, television, telephones, indoor plumbing, oh, yes, and the internet.  But it's fun to wander through the past and discover how things used to be.  And if it involves sewing and quilts, sign me up!
Happy Quilting!