Home Is Where The Cats Are

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

How has your summer been?  I can't believe it's nearly over!  I've been traveling a lot this summer, and I'm glad to be home again.  I am grateful for all the time with family and will cherish the memories, but it's so good to be back into my usual routines.  Like making quilts!

The top above evolved from leftover cat blocks made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2024.  As you can see, I added borders to the blocks, and set them together with a cat print border.  There are all sorts of odd fabrics here, like the black Harry Potter symbol cat with a background of a spectacled cat next to the Eifel Tower.

Here's a block with Laurel Burch print dogs and a light cat print background.

More cute kitties in the border!  I love their rainbow accessories.

After adding the border, the blocks measure 9 in. finished, and the quilt is 42 in. x 51 in.  I might quilt it myself if I get time, or I will donate it as a top to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

What about my real cats?  I missed these critters!

I couldn't get Snicky to pose on the quilt.  Guess he was just too comfortable on the carpet.

Lizzy was relaxing on the couch with a different quilt.  Running around the house at five o'clock in the morning wears them out.  For a little while.

Now that I'm home, I'm catching up on my yellow Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for August.  Quarter Log Cabins are quick and easy, thank goodness.  The one in the upper left was a test block, you may have seen it before.  Lots of bright yellows here, with bugs and hearts and Dr. Seuss characters.  And Elmo!

More Elmo, two different prints!  More bugs, too.  Plus Thomas the Tank Engine, and dogs.

I saved my soft yellows for the last block.  There are teddy bears, Peter Rabbit, zoo animals, and a sweet dog.

Next I made two Dawn Chorus blocks.  I only need two for the quilt I'm planning so it didn't take too long.

Here's the other one.  Now I only need to make 3 purple blocks before I can start setting them together.

I missed these guys, too!  They were really hamming it up when we went to Bookworm Gardens in Sheboygan, Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago.  It was a great day, perfect weather and so many book-related things to see.  Just the thing for a retired school librarian like me!

So was this!  I am posing with the Cat in the Hat at the Hartford, Connecticut airport last Monday.  The Dr. Seuss characters are there to promote The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts.  I wish I had had time to go there!

I hope you have time this week to do the things you love to do.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these great linky parties!  Click to see all the eye candy!

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Stack It Up!

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Happy U.S. Independence Day!

The Stack It Up top doesn't really qualify as a 4th of July quilt.  It's red white and blue, and also orange and green and yellow and purple and aqua, etc.  I always think I'll do some red white and blue sewing on July 4, but end up not prepping anything ahead.

Many thanks to the people who commented recommending not including the heart appliques from Lori Holt's original pattern.  My white strips are wild enough on their own!  

All of these scraps come from my "Parts Department", mostly the 2 in. strips drawer.  I also raided the 2 in. squares box and the "little bricks" (2 x 3.5 in. rectangles) box. 

There's a solid red inner border, then this blue alphabet print border with illustrations that remind me of books from the 1950s, like Dick and Jane.  I got the blue fabric second hand from the museum sale.

Lizzy the cat walked over the top to test the seams but declined to stay and pose.  I think she gets fluffier every day.

I haven't decided if I'm quilting it myself or donating it as a top to be quilted by a volunteer.  It's not huge (45 in. x 57 in.) but I'm not going to have a lot of time to quilt this summer.

New color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge:  Aqua!  I'm making five of these Half Log Cabin blocks in each color.  I had already made the one above when I tested the pattern, so I had only four more to sew.

Two are a greenish aqua and two are more bluish.  Lots of my aqua prints have a nautical/ocean life theme.  Except for the cow (not a sea cow) and elephants (not elephant seals).  Also some butterflies.

In Progress

Summer is my busiest time of year, mostly because school is out for my youngest grandsons.  I can make time for piecing in the mornings and at odd moments, but having time to actually do the quilting is hard to come by.  I'll catch up in the fall when the boys go back to school.

In the meantime I'll get ahead on some piecing projects.  This is another Lori Holt pattern called Criss Cross Star.   I first saw it on her You Tube channel.  It's #10 in her Sew Your Stash Series.  (Click HERE.)  The block she made on the video was 9 in. finished, and that's what I'm making.  It appears in her book Scrappiness is Happiness as a 15 in. finished block.  One of the coolest things about it is the cutting:  it's all squares!  Also the points float, so you can't accidentally cut off the points.  Works for me!

More beautiful aqua!  My friend Debbie gave me this lovely shawl she knit with beautiful shades of blues and greens.  It's light as a feather and so soft.  I can't wait to find a dress to wear with it.  (Thanks again, Debbie, you are amazing!)

It's July 4th, and we've already been to a parade!  That's because a neighboring town has its Independence Day parade on July 3rd.  That's Hubby and our youngest daughter above.  My hilarious husband is wearing Little Guy's hat.  The parade was amazing, and we had a great time.

I hope you all have a great time this week, doing things you love to do.

Happy Independence Day, America!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

 

 

More Bright Hopes, Orange, Quilt History, and Art

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

May is such a busy month!  I didn't have much time for sewing this week, but I mananged to drag this little quilt over the "finished" line last evening.  It's a donation for the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.

The pattern is an old standby from the Quilts for Kids website.  (Click HERE for the link.)  Instead of 4 patches I used some of the leftover blocks from last year's Bright Hopes stack, made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I think I can get one more quilt from them.

The unpieced blocks are a cute print that looks like children's drawings.  I bought this from Hancock Fabrics online on a whim.  I always justify buys like this to myself with these four words:  It Was On Sale.  Which it was!

I don't usually add a narrow inner border, but this quilt really needed it since the border and the alternate block are the same fabric.

The back is this cute print, which is also meant to look like children's drawings.  I bought it second hand and have had it forever.  It was good to find a home for it.

A two inch grid in serpentine stitch was quickly quilted, and the binding is the same fabric as the inner border.  It's a small quilt, just 38 in. x 44 in., which should work well for a baby or toddler.

The orange blocks are really standing out to me this month.  Isn't it a great color?

It was fun sewing the orange Half Log Cabin blocks.  I only had to make 4, because the one on the bottom right was one of the blocks I made to try out the pattern.

Orange novelty prints can be hard to find, but thank goodness for Halloween fabrics!  Even the Cat in the Hat print was meant for Halloween.

Check out the bats!

And of course these black cats!  I bought this print in Kentucky last fall.

In Progress

Oops, I forgot to show my work In Progress last week!  I was in too big a hurry to go to the WQSG meeting (more on that below).  I'm working on some leftover half square triangles that were in the back of the 2.5 in. square drawer.  I'm sewing them into 6 in. finished Friendship Stars to make another quilt like the one I just finished.  The orange ones are done!

The Wisconsin Quilt Study Group meeting last weekend was wonderful!  We met at the Lincoln-Tallman House in Janesville, Wisconsin, and the staff pulled out lots of quilts for us to enjoy.  I think this one was in the servants' quarters.  (Yay, orange!)

They even did a bed turning for us featuring some of their oldest quilts.  This one was wonderfully scrappy.  The colors were still vibrant.  Very little information was available on the date, but definitely before 1900.

As part of our meeting, we shared some of our family quilts.  I had to snap a photo of this one that belonged to Carol.  I have often admired this scrappy pattern.  Plus, more orange!

The museum staff was amazing, our tour guide was knowledgeable, fun, and patient, and the house is beautifully preserved.  We even got to see where Abraham Lincoln slept!  It was a lovely quilty day out.

Yesterday DH and I had another great day.  It was Grandparents Day at Buddy and Little Guy's school.  We saw their classrooms, played bingo, went to the bookfair, and viewed the art show.  Above Buddy is showing us his painting of sunflowers.

Little Guy is pointing to his project, a smiling snail with a colorful shell.

Little Guy was just happy to make something and have it displayed, but Buddy was disappointed not to get a ribbon for his project. I hope I can help them focus more on the satisfaction of creating and sharing art and less on competition.  Art (in whatever medium we like!) can give us joy all through our lives.

I hope you have a joyful week, with time to do what you love.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

A Scrappy Star, and Lots of Red

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

Twinkle Twinkle Scrappy Star is a top!  I hung it in our maple tree on a sunny day last week.

The blocks were easy and fun to make.  The points even came out right, most of the time!  All thanks to quilt designer Lori Holt.

I discovered the tutorial for this quilt on Lori Holt's Youtube channel.  I had two of her books, but hadn't really done anything with them.  After I watched a ton of her videos I ordered two more books.  My favorite is the one on top in the photo, Scrappiness is Happiness.  The directions on Youtube are very clear, and you wouldn't need the book to make the quilt, but I wanted to see all the other great designs.  Plus, as you'd expect from a retired librarian, I like hard copies!

The directions and photos in the book are great too.  You can see that Lori set her blocks side by side. I went for sashing and cornerstones for a slightly different look, which helps separate the wide variety of background fabrics I used.

All of the star points came from my box of 2.5 in. x 4.5 in. rectangles, so all I had to cut were the background pieces.  Did you notice the Peanuts Easter fabric in the block above?  I'm using holiday fabrics even in non-holiday quilts if the color is right.

My quilt is 56 in. x 66 in., and will be donated as a top to the Children's Advocacy Center.  A volunteer will quilt it.

Here's an adorable snuggly flannel baby quilt, also going to the CAC.  I didn't make this one, my friend Tammy M. did.

Tammy had a really good idea, which I will be shamelessly stealing.  This quilt is made of leftover border strips.  Tammy sewed them together (see the seam in the middle?) and quilted them.  People often donate this kind of thing to our group, or these borders end up in second hand sales, and I never knew what to do with them.  Now I know!  Thanks, Tammy!

It's the last week of red month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I had two sets of blocks to work on if I was going to get done on time.  First is the Half Log Cabin.  The block above is one I made to test my pattern.

It was fun digging through the red scraps to find fun prints.

Isn't red a great color?

Lastly, the crumb blocks!  I made all of these yesterday.  Still not sure what I'm doing with them at the end of the year.  My favorite block is the one with the south end of a north bound cow.  (It's the second block from the top, on the right.)

In Progress

I'm still working on the Cabin Steps quilt blocks as leaders and enders.  This one is going to take a while.

Meanwhile, this little quilt will be getting an orange binding.  The backing fabric is from 2012, and I bought it second hand in an antique shop.  All those colorful words are names of towns in Wisconsin. I'll show the front of the quilt next week.

Farewell to red month for the RSC, it's been fun!  I'm sure our next color will great, too.

Have a lovely week, everyone.  Happy Quilting!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap