Welcoming Fall

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Is it fall where you live?  Here in Wisconsin, it's sunny out this morning, but the temperature went down to freezing last night.  Fall is for real now, and winter is not far behind. 

Time to get quilting!  I got this Very Hungry Caterpillar baby quilt quilted and bound (finally) and ready for its new home.  It will be donated to Project Linus.  The blocks were made as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Look what I found for the back!  These are pieces from two different panels plus some of the fabric from the front.  I've had one of these panels in a box in the basement for years.  The date on the selvedge of that one was 2007.

Here's our sweet little caterpillar, changed into a beautiful butterfly.

Speaking of sweet!  Remember last week, when I was canning apples and pears?  This little guy made up his own game playing with the jar rings.  He was pretty proud of himself.  He kept putting the rings on the chair, and taking them off, and putting them on again.  Having him around is so much fun.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!  And when life gives quilters scraps, we make quilts!  That was the idea behind our quilt guild's Lemonade Challenge.  Participants were each given a bag of scraps by the charity committee, and asked to make a quilt/top from them.  We had to use two thirds of the colors in the bag, but could add our own fabrics too.  Above are the fabrics I had to work with.

Tops or quilts were due this month.  This is my entry.  The pattern is called Double Slice, and comes from Jenny Doan of the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  (Click HERE for the YouTube video.)  Jenny made hers from layer cakes, but it's easy enough to just cut the pieces from scraps.  As you can see, I concentrated on the warm colors, and added quite a few of my own scraps.

The block only has 4 pieces in it, so it goes together quickly.  I donated my top to the charity committee, who will quilt it and find it a good home.

It's fun to see our wildlife neighbors in the park.  These Canadian geese were loudly arguing with another group of geese, apparently about which group got to eat the food put out for them.  They moved away as Baby Buddy and I got closer, but went back to honking as soon as we were gone.

My daughter sent me this photo of my two littlest buddies cuddling together.  They don't always get along this well, but they really do love each other.

Fall brings a lot of good family times for us, like birthdays and Halloween and Thanksgiving.  This year is already better than last year, now that so many of us are vaccinated and can feel safe sharing a meal and hugging again.  Yes, hugging, lots of it!

May this week bring you happy times with people you care about.  And fun with scraps and quilts!

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

Orange Blocks and a Caterpillar

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's the last Saturday of September, and the last Saturday of orange for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I'm working on sewing the blocks I've made all year into baby quilts for donation.  This little quilt uses Friendship Stars and Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric.

I'm a retired school librarian, so of course I love The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and all the other books by Eric Carle.  In this fabric, we can see his little head (before he ate all that food) and the colorful dots found on the title page (below).

The border fabric also copies those dots, but with brighter and darker colors.

I bought the caterpillar fabric in a quilt shop on our recent vacation, but I had to order the border fabric (from the Fat Quarter shop) when I decided I needed it.  Lesson learned, buy it when you see it!  (BTW, my local shop didn't have it.  I always check there first.)

The set was easy and fun to do, and one I had never done before.  Instead of sashing, I sewed a rectangle of the caterpillar fabric (cut 2.5 in. x 6.5 in.) to the top of half the blocks and the bottom of the other half.  When I sewed the rows together, I alternated the blocks, and that's what gives it the staggered look.  I chose to make a mini-rainbow with the colors.

I absolutely love orange, especially Halloween prints!

More orange blocks are done. 

The 1890s reproduction prints in Poinsettia blocks,

and of course Ice Cream blocks.  Orange sherbet, mango ice cream, maybe even pumpkin and cantaloupe!

So what's ahead for next week?  As you can imagine, I've got lots more blocks to sew into tops.  Once I've figured out which blocks go where, I use paper labels and clothespins to organize the rows at the treadle.  I usually piece in the mornings, while waiting for my Baby Buddy to be dropped off.

Once the tops are made, there's the usual backing, batting, and basting to deal with.  Then Mrs. Pfaff and I get to work doing some simple quilting.

But first Baby Buddy and I need to go to the park!  Sometimes I wonder why we buy so many toys, when his favorite things are sticks, rocks, leaves, and pine cones.  Here he's banging on the metal post, making lots of exciting noise.

Little Buddy, Baby Buddy's big brother, was Student of the Week this week at kindergarten.  He got to bring in his favorite book for storytime.  Guess what it was!  That's right, The Very Hungry Caterpillar!

I hope you have fun this week with all your favorites, whatever they may be.  Stay safe, and keep sewing!

Cheers,

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