Split Personality

Last week, I finished this quilt.  I call it Crossroads.  It's made from my 1800s reproduction fabric scraps.  I bound it by hand this week, and washed it to bring out the crinkly goodness.

Check out these colors--cadet blue, garibaldi red, double pink, indigo blue, and of course lots of shirtings.
Now take a look at this week's finish, a Split Nine Patch:

Bright colors, novelty prints, lots of kid-friendly fabrics.  (It looks good with my grandson's car in the background, doesn't it?)
Sometimes I'm historical, and other times I'm just hysterical.  Maybe I have a split personality.

If so, Split Nine Patch is definitely the block pattern for me.  I was using up strips from the 3.5 in. shoebox for this one.

Here's one block laid out on the treadle cabinet.  Sometimes this block is made with a square of dark in the center, instead of the split square I used.

You can see more of the crazy fabrics I used here.  I got a huge stack of Route 66 fabric scraps at a flea market last summer, and lots of them made it into the quilt.

This was so easy to quilt on my Pfaff with the built-in walking foot!  I just crosshatched the center and quilted lines through the squares.  Between the light and dark areas I quilted with the edge of the presser foot on the seam.

The back is a giant dots print from Connecting Threads.  It comes 108 in. wide, so no seam on the back this time.  My daughter thinks it looks like something a clown would wear.

The binding is from a remnant, and I just barely had enough.  Last year, I bound everything with red, so this year I'm using up the blues.  Not sure what's next when those are gone.  (Shopping??)
The Split Nine Patch will go to a children's charity, and I hope it will be loved to pieces.
I can't wait to see what everybody else is making at Busy Hands Quilts and Crazy Mom Quilts.
Gotta split!
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Quilts for Children

I love making quilts, ANY kind of quilts, but my favorites will always be quilts for children.  This is my adorable youngest grandson posing with his new quilt.

I made the top before he was born.  It's bigger than the usual baby quilt, but not as big as a twin.

I just knew he would love cars and trucks and fire engines, and he really does.  I think he's influenced by his daddy and big brother.

I finally made time to quilt it.  The quilting is done very simply, mostly in the ditch.  In the border, I tried to make it look like a road.  The center line has really long stitches.

Here's the back, one of my favorite polka dots.

In other news, sometimes, procrastination pays off.  I had been dragging my feet about sending some baby quilts to Quilts for Kids in Pennsylvania when the hurricane hit Texas last week.

So I boxed up three baby quilts, and sent them to Linus Connection in Austin, Texas, to be distributed to children affected by Hurricane Harvey.
Click HERE to go to their web page for instructions on mailing, etc.  Linus Connection is a 501(c)(3) organization, very similar to what we know here in Wisconsin as Project Linus.

Here's the next one I'm making.  I hope to send a new batch next week.

None of us can do everything, but all of us can do something.

I wish you good weather, warm hugs, and lots of lovely quilts.
Cheers,
Sylvia
Linking up this week with Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  Crazy Mom Quilts, and Busy Hands Quilts.

Choose Happy

I'm taking today's title from words printed on fabric.  It's not even grammatically correct, as my English-major daughter would point out.  It should probably say, "Choose happiness", or Choose to be happy."  But the grammar doesn't really matter (don't tell my daughter I said that!).  It's the sentiment that counts.  I used the choose happy fabric as sashing in this quilt.

The pattern for the quilt came from this magazine, American Patchwork & Quilting, June 2017 issue.  I don't know if you've noticed, but they are including a quilt pattern specifically meant for charity/donation quilts in each issue so far this year. 

The column is called Sew Giving, and is hidden in the back of the magazine, after the stapled-in pattern sheets.  The pattern I used is called Positive Effect, and was designed by Amanda Niederhauser (jedicraftgirl.com).

Here's the original quilt from the article. 
As soon as I saw this pattern, I decided I had to make it.  (Does this ever happen to you?)  No matter what else I had going on in the sewing room, this was gonna get pieced.

I liked this quilt because:
1.  I could use 5 in. squares, which I had been cutting from some of my scraps, and 3.5 in strips, which seem to be multiplying in their shoebox.
2.  The blocks were big (12 in. finished), so I wouldn't need very many to make a good sized quilt.
3.  It was easy as pie.  Or actually easier.

Some of my favorite blocks are:

Cats!!!  Cat is my baby grandson's favorite word.  He says it all day long.  ALL DAY LONG.

My grandmother used to recite a poem about a purple cow.  This reminds me of that poem, even though the background of the center square, and not the cow, is purple.
"I've never seen a purple cow,
I never hope to see one.
But this I can say anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one."
I looked it up (thank you, Wikipedia!).  The author was Gelett Burgess, and it was published in 1895.  I changed it slightly to the version my Gran taught us.

Here's a glimpse of two blocks.  The one in the foreground is so insane I had to lie down after making it.

I sewed these blocks up during my grandson's naptimes, and it didn't take long to get 20 of them. 

The directions were good, and I liked the pattern, but I always have to change at least a few things.
Here's what I changed:
1.  I used bright colored prints and novelty fabrics to make the blocks.
2.  The original used the sashing fabric in the center of each block.  I used the centers to add another print.
3.  I added cornerstones in the sashing to give the top a punch of color.  Doing so used up some 2.5 in. squares from my "collection".  (Don't worry, I have LOTS more.)
4.  I added a 4 in. finished border on the outside.

I took this photo while auditioning border fabrics.  This wild Southwest fabric won!

So here's the top, all done and ready to go to our volunteer long-arm quilters.  With the added border, it measures roughly 66 in. x 80 in., and fits nicely on a twin bed.

So thanks to APQ for including patterns for those of us who sew for donation.  As far as I can tell from a short search of their web site (allpeoplequilt.com) these patterns are only available in the physical magazine.  If I'm wrong about that, let me know.

This week, I'm going to do all my usual things, like laundry and grocery shopping and babysitting and cleaning, and, of course, quilting.  And I'm going to choose happy in all the things I do.
I'm doing this because attitude really is everything, and being open to happiness really does encourage joy.  And not just because some fabric told me to.

I hope you can choose happy this week too.
Cheers,
Sylvia

Oh, baby!

This week's finish is a flannel trip around the world.  I have finally finished a quilt for my soon-to-arrive grandson. 

There are 81 squares in the quilt, set 9 across and 9 down.  I cut them 5 in. square, and added a border of the same size.  When finished, the quilt measures 49.5 in. x 49.5 in.  It may have shrunk a little in washing, as flannel does, but I did wash all the fabric ahead of time to minimize that.

I got to use lots of my favorite flannel prints.  This is the very last "Baby Boy" print I had.

This is also the last of the cowboy teddy bear fabric.  The ducky print was left over from a burp cloth.

I was really glad I took this picture before I started sewing the squares together!  My rotten cat got into my sewing room and scattered the squares everywhere.

I tried a new thing when marking the borders for quilting--I used soap.  My husband has a weird idea of what a soap "sliver" is.  I think this is still a good sized piece of soap, but he didn't want to use it anymore and got out a new bar, so I marked the quilt with this one. 
I've been using chalk to mark with for years, but it tends to rub off as you're working.  I was hoping the soap might be better.
The verdict?  The soap is slightly better.  This big hunk marked kind of a wide line, but that was okay for what I was doing here.  And it smells nice.  This is Ivory soap, I don't know how other brands would work.  It washed off easily.
It's still babymania around here, with just about a month to go.

Last weekend, we had a baby shower.  We held it at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts in Cedarburg.  Instead of tablecloths, we used baby-style fabrics, which you can see some of here.
A real baby came to the shower!  This is my daughter's friend with her little one.  My granddaughter is the little girl in the pink, and next to her is her mother, my oldest daughter.  The old lady is me.

We will be using the fabrics from the shower to make baby quilts for charity.  Some will go to Project Linus in West Bend, and some will go to Quilts for Kids, to be given to kids in hospitals.

I've started kitting up the fabrics, and have two done so far.

The first kit features this adorable whale print.  This will be a 4-patch quilt, made from the Quilts for Kids pattern on their web site. 
Here's a link to the pdf for the pattern, if you're interested.  It's the same pattern they put in their kits, so there are instructions on returning the kit within 4-6 weeks.  Just ignore that if you're cutting your own fabric.
Quilts for Kids 4 Patch Pattern

I branched out a little for the second quilt.  The pattern comes from the Moda Bakeshop, and was submitted by Jo Kramer of Jo's Country Junction (I love her work!)
Here's the link to the free pattern:
Step Up Quilt Pattern

This quilt will be red, white, and blue, to go with the light fabric, which has little teddy bear sailors printed on it.  I'm making it smaller than the original.  It's sort of similar to the Falling Charms quilt.

My sewing room is an absolute disaster right now, with all sorts of fabrics being auditioned to go the with baby fabric.
It's a fun kind of chaos.
Have fun this week.

More Leftovers

Big Scraps, Little Scraps is finished!

It's on the bed in the extra room, ready for a visitor or just for the cat to nap on.

Here's the back.  You can see the border here, too.  It's a brown print on the front and this rusty red on the back.  All of the fabrics came out of my stash.  Even so, it really didn't make a dent in what I have.  Guess I just need to keep sewing!

I didn't forget the finishing touch--a label.

When I finish a quilt, I like to take stock of what I have and figure out what I need to work on next.  That means sorting through things in the closet.
Cleaning out the closet reminds me of cleaning out the refrigerator.  No matter how organized I try to be, there always seem to be leftovers lurking in the back that I have completely forgotten about.  Old food has to go down the garbage disposal, but quilt pieces thankfully don't spoil.

In a plastic zip lock bag, I found 7 of these blocks plus more cut pieces.  I have made this particular pattern over and over for charity quilts, and I'm not always counting the blocks as I work, so it wasn't surprising that I would have extras.  I could see why I hadn't made more blocks, however.  The fabrics in the bag were dull, and so were the blocks.   This was an easy fix.  I made 23 more blocks with bright fabrics, and mixed the dull blocks in.

We had just been to the Newport Aquarium in Newport, Kentucky, so I was thinking of that when I added the sea turtle print border.

Here it is, quilted and bound in a dotted red print.

I always like to have a leaders and enders project going, so I don't waste any time or thread (thank you, Bonnie Hunter).  One of the other leftovers filled that job.

There was a whole bag of these half square triangles in the closet.  Some of them probably came from a quilt I made for my grandson Henry a couple of years ago, but I actually can't remember where the others came from.

I trimmed the hsts down to 2.5 in. squares, and added white squares and a print center to make these little blocks.  The pattern is similar to Double Hour Glass (Brackman #1687a).

I've almost got enough of these blocks done for a small quilt.  So I guess I need to look for another project to finish.  Wonder if I'll ever run out?

I wish you the joy of sewing this week.

Getting Carried Away

I love piecing quilt blocks.  I never cut out a whole quilt at once.  I like to cut three or four blocks, piece them together, press them, and cut some more.  Since I'm almost always making scrap quilts, I love to see how the fabrics work together.  I love the little jolt of happy I get when I press it and it's even better than I hoped.
As you can see, I've been getting carried away.  This is my closet, filled with tops needing to be quilted.  And this is only the recent stuff.  The rest of the tops are in the basement, in bins.  I have run out of hangers big enough for the tops.
There are several sensible things I could do to solve this problem.  I could get some more hangers.  There are probably some in my husband's side of our closet.  (After all, he's retired, what does he need with neat unwrinkled clothes?)  Or I could send some of these quilts, especially the large ones, out to be quilted by a longarmer.  Or I could buckle down and get some quilting done.
Buckling down is the mature answer.  Plus it's cheap.  I already have everything I need to quilt at least a few of these.

This one will be pretty easy to quilt.  It's a small quilt, made from a pattern on the Quilts for Kids web site.
It's called I Spy.  Here's a link to their pattern page, which currently has 4 quilts.  If you click on the I Spy quilt, a pdf will come up that you can print.  As you probably know, Quilts for Kids is a charity that gives quilts to kids in hospitals.
Quilts for Kids Patterns

The pattern calls for 1.5 in. cut strips (the ones that look like sashing), which are usually either black or white.  I don't like black for kids' quilts very much, so I chose a green polka dot.  You also need 6 strips 3.5 in. cut of 6 different novelty prints.  I used some that more or less went with the green.  You can use one-way prints in this pattern, like the frogs or the Eric Carle children.  It really helps to lay this one out on the floor to separate the prints.  The directions call for strip piecing, but it would be fun to make this with lots of rectangles of different novelty fabrics.  They would be cut 3.5 in. x 5.5 in.  The blocks finish at 5 in., and there are 42 of them (7 rows of 6). 
As with all the Quilts for Kids patterns, the directions are very clear.  If you follow the directions, you won't need to piece either the borders or the backing.

I got carried away again!  When I pulled the fabrics for the green quilt, I also pulled some for a yellow/pink one.  This time I used 3 one way prints--purses, cupcakes, and giraffes.

I still have to add the borders.  Oh, AND QUILT IT.
Honestly, I like quilting.  Really.  Piecing just seems to lure me away.

I got this one pinned up last night, and will work on it this afternoon.  It was made by Joan D., a fellow quilt guild member, and it even has her signature piano keys border.  It's for charity.

When I quilt these smaller quilts, I like to use a package of Queen Sized Warm and Natural batting.  It will usually make 4 quilts.  It's nice and flat, easy to quilt, and I can quilt a little further apart than with 100% cotton.  When it's on sale (which is a lot of the time) I usually buy a couple packages.  I ran out of the Soft Touch batting, and I don't know if I can get any more. 

More novelty prints!  I made this top a couple of weeks ago.  Just because.  That's why I made it, and that's actually the name of it.

The pattern came from this magazine. It's made from squares and rectangles (no triangles).  There are lots of other good patterns in here, too.

I had to show this detail today.  Happy Dr. Seuss' birthday!  The wacky world of Dr. Seuss has done a lot to make kids (and adults!) love books and reading.
I get a little carried away when it comes to things I love, like books and quilts.  So every once in while I have to calm things down a little--take some books to the library for the book sale.  Or finish a few quilts.  Putting in the last stitches is very rewarding.
And then I'll be ready to get carried away again.
Have a wonderful quilty week, whatever you do.