Rainbow Scrap Challenge Heart Quilts, Part Deux

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

More hearts this week!  I'm working on making quilts with the blocks I sewed all year for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  These are the second and third heart quilts.

In the little quilt above, I have alternated the heart blocks with Bright Hopes blocks, which were also an RSC project this year.  I'm calling it Hearts and Bright Hopes (I am nothing if not obvious!).  I arranged them in rainbow rows.  There are fifteen Hearts and fifteen Bright Hopes.

The border is an Eric Carle print.  This one features The Very Lonely Firefly from his book of the same name.  I got several yards at a sale in Madison almost a year ago.  You can expect to see it again!

Here's the backing, red hearts on white.  This yardage came from the museum sale last summer, and was just right for this project.

The quilt is 36 in. x 42 in., and will be donated to the Children's Advocacy Center.

More hearts!  I call this one Hearts and Squares.  It's a lap size/small twin at 54 in. x 62 in.

I was hoping to use up some of these 2.5 in. squares, so the rest would fit better in the drawer.  I bet you know what happened.  This is the "before" photo.

Here's a photo from today.  This quilt top used up 213 of the squares.  And the only reason the drawer looks a little emptier is that I moved the solid squares to a different drawer.  This proves it.  I will never be able to use up all my scraps.  

That's okay with me!

The sashing pieces were handy to use for leaders and enders.  When I finished the top, I realized it was a bit bright.  Even for me.

All these wild fabrics might be a bit much.  I put a calmer border on it, not sure if it helps.

It was definitely fun digging all these squares out of the drawer and adding them together.

The top will also be going to the CAC in Milwaukee.

Christmastime is here for all of us who celebrate.  We got a little help decorating the tree this week from our youngest grandsons.  Buddy was kind enough to pose for me.  He is growing so much lately, getting taller.

So is Little Guy!  He can reach farther up on the tree than ever.  You can see we still have snow on the ground.  It's been here for two weeks now, not melting any time soon.

I hope you're having a good week, in spite of or because of the holiday excitement.  I'm not expecting to get much sewing done this coming week, which is one of the reasons I don't sew gifts.  I am looking forward to all the fun social activities this week.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!  And happy quilting to everyone!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

Bow Tie Trip Around the World

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

This is the third bow tie quilt in my quest to use up blocks from this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I wanted a different set for this one.  Isn't it dramatic?

I only had 4 orange blocks left, so that worked out for the center.

The border is a cute Dr. Seuss print from the clearance section at the local quilt shop.  I never pass up Dr. Seuss!  

Thanks to the RSC, I used up lots of scraps this year, like the jeep on a green background.  (And yet, there are more scraps than ever.  Must be a law of physics or something.)

The blocks are 8 in. finished, and this quilt took 48 blocks set 6 x 8, with a 4 in. finished border.  It's a sort of lap size/small twin, 56 in. x 72 in.

I will be donating this one as a top.  It will go to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee after it is quilted.

So the bow tie quilt count is up to 3.  Still more coming!  (But the end is in sight.)

In other news, I have started assembling the heart blocks I also made for the RSC.  There will be multiple heart quilts also.  The first one I will call Happy Hearts.  I'm framing the 6 in. heart blocks with 2 in. cut strips to make 9 in. finished blocks.  I've made a quilt like this before, a long time ago.  Other ideas for setting the hearts are floating around in my head.

Right now though I'm working on what I'm calling The Princess Problem.  A few months ago, a friend at quilt guild gave me a stack of Princess Life charm squares.  I had them out this week, thinking about how to use them.  Wednesday night at this month's quilt guild meeting she had found another huge batch of these same blocks, and gave them to me.  There are 335 squares! 

 

So what's the problem?  How best to use them to make quilts for little girls.  This is a great problem to have.

So far I have made a chart and a graph and planned one quilt.  Seems like a good start, but it uses less than half of the squares.  Time to drag out my charm square books.

That's what I'm working on.  How about you?

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may have noticed I'm not posting as many pictures of my youngest grandsons Buddy and Little Guy.  That's because their mom is between jobs, so I'm currently not babysitting them.  I miss seeing them every day!  We do still get together but I often forget to take pictures (Ack!  sound of hand hitting forehead).  I'm sure I'll be babysitting again sometime soon.

For now, here's a photo from last summer of my daughter and all three of her sons.

Have a wonderful week, everyone!  Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Americans!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with these great parties.  Come join us!

Finished or Not Finished Friday

So Scrappy

Oh Scrap

 

I Heart Aqua Prints, Crumbs, and Old Projects

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

How are your aqua blocks coming along?

What with one thing and another I did not get much done in the sewing room this week except for a few blocks.  These hearts are aqua for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.

I was a little surprised at how many aqua scraps I had, especially in novelty prints.  (The top right heart is a dinosaur bones print.  How often do you see something like that?)

I have had some of these scraps for literally years, like the cat print on the bottom right.  Someday I will use the last scrap of it, and I'll be sad.

Favorite block:  Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too.  I still have a lot of this fabric, mostly in smaller pieces.  It will probably turn up in aqua blocks for the RSC for years to come.

Does this ever happen to you?  Sometimes I'll be working on a project and find I've used up all the pieces for the leaders and enders project I'm doing at the same time.  Then I'll be hunting around in the sewing room for something else to use as leaders and enders, and accidentally (!) start a new project.  

That's what these crumb blocks are.  I have a small bin on my cutting table for "crumbs", those small bits that can't be cut into any of the pieces I save.  For me, that means anything smaller than a 2 in. square.  

When the little bin gets full, I sort the pieces by color, and store them in a small bag inside a larger bag of strings the same color.  (The aqua crumbs are getting out of hand!)  I start the crumb blocks with the little pieces, and finish them with strings from the bag.  I only got three made this week, but they were fun to do.  Plus they used up small scraps and strings!  This will be a long term project, with no pressure to finish soon.

I still have lots of block sets I made for last year's RSC, like these 3-D flying geese.  (Click HERE for the post with a tutorial.)  It was still in the block bin because I couldn't decide what I was doing with them. 

I ended up going back to my original idea and putting them together like this.  It's aqua month, so I did aqua blocks first of course.  Maybe I'll get a couple of 2024 quilts done before we start putting together the 2025 RSC blocks.

It's been hot here this week, 92F yesterday, so we've done some inside things, like crafts.  Buddy had fun making these Minecraft and Super Mario items from Perler beads.  They're assembled on a hard plastic base and melted with an iron.

My hubby made this one.  Do you think he might have been influenced by living with a quilter?

Whatever the weather at your house, I hope you are having a good week, with time to do the things you love.  Like quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

  

Lions and Tigers and Bears and Purple

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

It's a rainy day, so no outside photos, sorry.

At last, a finished quilt!  By some miracle, I got a little extra time this week.  Mrs. Pfaff and I made short work of this little 40 in. x 48 in. Happy Blocks quilt.

I showed the top on the blog back in March.  It was waiting for quilting when Mrs. Pfaff had to go into the shop.  In my head I'm calling it Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My.

The pieces in the center of the Happy Blocks are animal prints cut from panels and striped fabrics, and bordered by solid colored scraps.  The squares were cut at 4.5 in., and the outside strips at 2.5 in. wide, making blocks that finished at 8 in. square.  

I'm donating this quilt to the Children's Advocacy Center in Milwaukee.  In my experience, most kids love animals, so I hope an animal quilt can brighten a child's day.

Wait, we've got a moose, a skunk, an elephant, birds, butterflies, etc., but where are the lions?

Here they are, on the back!  Along with zebras, giraffes, more elephants, turtles, and even more tigers!

I bought this fabric at a second hand sale, and it fit perfectly for the back.  The copyright on the selvedge is 1998.  Older cotton fabrics (in good condition!) can be great for backing, since they are usually 2 to 3 inches wider than today's fabric.

It's hard to believe this is the last Saturday in July.  The summer is speeding past!  I had to push hard to get my purple blocks done for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, since I know I won't have much time next week.

Sisters Choice is first, just five blocks, but with lots of purple scraps.

Next are the heart blocks.  I was surprised I had so many different shades of purple in the scraps.

There are TWO ghost print blocks.  The one on the upper left came from the box my friend gave me two weeks ago.  I'm already working on those scraps, Joey!  I just need to sew faster!

My favorite block this week is one of those prints that looks purple with blue fabrics and blue with purple.  I call them chameleons.  It's a cat print, I think it's by the late Laurel Burch.  It won't matter what color it reads when it ends up in a scrap quilt.

I did get the peaches canned last Saturday.  We also had peach crisp and some for eating.  I already had peach jam from last year, so I didn't bother with it.

Yesterday we met our oldest daughter and her kids at a lake.  The boys would hardly get out of the water, even for lunch!

Buddy was looking for fish.  There were some very tiny ones.  He was too busy to pose.

All of us are well here, and I hope you are the same.  Have a lovely week!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Lap Quilts, Orange Scraps, and the Big Sale

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Thanks for stopping by!

It's two for the price of one today!  These little lap quilts are ready to be donated to a local nursing home.  They are twins, made from the same blocks and the same scrap bags.  I call them fraternal twins since the colors are opposite.

The block is rectangular.  I got this idea from Cynthia at Oh Scrap.  Each block is just one square and one rectangle.  The squares were cut 4 in., and were in a bag of scraps donated to our guild.  The rectangles came from a similar bag, and were originally 2.5 x 4.5, but I cut them down to 2.5 x 4 to match the squares.  There were only a few squares of this farm animal print.  Isn't it sweet?

Quilt A (above) is made from dark squares and light rectangles, all from the scrap bags.

Quilt B is made from light squares and dark rectangles.  I had plenty of rectangles from the scrap bag, but I did have to add in some light squares cut from my scraps.  The border, backing, and binding are the same on both quilts, and came from my stash.

The cat in this square reminds me of Little Lizzy, our shy kitten.  She's shy around people, but goes chasing through the house with her big brother Snicky.

Speaking of Snicklefritz,  our Little Guy asked me to take this picture with him.  Little Guy loves Snicky, but we are still working on teaching him that cats don't like hugs.

Quilt guild meeting was last Wednesday, and I picked up a few more scraps from the free table.  The squares in front are Halloween prints.  I love the ones with black cats!  In the back are squares and rectangles made from strips.  Lots of great orange variety!

Time has been short this week, but I was able to use my orange scraps to make some hearts for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

As always, some are more successful than others, but all will be put to good use in kid quilts.

I have two favorites this week!  Birthday candles and monkeys, and two Dr. Seuss prints!

Sometimes people ask me where I get all these novelty prints.  One answer is the big sale at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts, which happened on Thursday.  It's always a highlight of the summer for me.  Above is the flannel I bought, some novelties and some "calmer" fabrics as blenders.

Here's the rest of it, the quilting cottons, plus a Sock Monkey panel.

I like these cat and dog prints best!  I can't wait to start sewing with them.

Also, lots of scraps!  They had a scrap section outside, where you could fill a bag for a set price.  I filled a kitchen trash bag for $5.

I always think of this sale as a Win-Win-Win-Win-Win.  The museum wins by raising money, and those of us who donate fabric etc. win by cleaning out our stuff.  Shoppers like me win by saving money.  The charities I give quilts to win, and the last win is keeping fabric and scraps out of the landfill.  Plus it's so much fun!

As of this writing, all the new-to-me fabric has been washed and put away.  I must admit, some of the bins are pretty full!  (I will not be buying any more flannel for a long time.)  Everything I bought will either be useful for the quilts I sew, or will be passed on to others.

It's a lovely summer day here, but a heat wave is forecast for the whole weekend.  Perfect weather for sewing in the air conditioning!  But isn't it always perfect weather for sewing?  Have a wonderful week!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Cynthia at Oh Scrap