For the Love of Orange

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

I'm happy about orange, the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  These are my Happy Blocks, made with orange frames and light centers.  This is the first six ...

and the second six.  I really had to dig to find prints with orange.  There's a big mess in the sewing room for me to clean up this weekend, with scraps and strips and yardage all over the place.

Check out the orange dinos, running across the print.  Hope that T Rex doesn't see them!

For bugs, we've got these creepy critters,
 

plus the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

There are some really cute owl prints now, like this one (which I also used in pink month), and

these chubby little owlets.

I was also able to use some of the scraps given to me by my friend Joey for the frames.  It's fun to cut and organize scraps, especially when you have a project that needs them.  (Thanks again, Joey!)

Remember this Hourglass top?  It was on the blog in early April.  I quilted it last weekend, and orange just seemed like the perfect binding.

The squares are quilted with diagonal lines using the serpentine stitch on my Pfaff.  I marked the lines with a soap sliver, and these photos are before I washed it, so some of the white soap is still visible.
 

This cheeky kitty from the border print says hi!  The quilt will be donated locally, to Project Linus.  A short tutorial on how I make the hourglass blocks can be found HERE.

The weather has been getting warmer at last, and we're spending more time outside.  Or we were, until the boys got strep throat.  Both are on the mend now, thanks to antibiotics.

Our first grade Buddy is very interested in weather, especially tornadoes.  He was thrilled when his mom bought him this shirt, and asked me to take his picture so I could send it to my mom in Oklahoma.  He is so impressed that she lives in Tornado Alley.

So what is this mess?  It's the last of my purple projects.  Thanks to chain piecing, I got the rest of the hsts sewn for the butterfly quilt border.  I want to get that top together this month.

 Happy Cinco de Mayo to all who celebrate, and Happy quilting to everyone!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Angela at SoScrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap 

 

Hourglass Four Patch Tutorial

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Here's a quick tutorial for a very easy quilt.

The blocks are made of two hourglass blocks and two plain squares.

To make the hourglass blocks, choose one dark charm square (5 in. x 5 in.) and one light square, same size.

Place the charm squares right sides together.  In this example, I put the light square on top.  Now slice the squares diagonally twice, corner to corner.  When pulled apart they look like this.

Each section is two triangles, right sides together.  Take them to the sewing machine, and stitch from the right angle to the triangle tip.  Make sure to sew all of them exactly the same way, with the light side up.  Here they are, all sewn.

Now open them up.  Gently finger press or iron the seam toward the dark triangle.  Arrange them like the photo below, and pin the center seam.  Then stitch.

 

From two charm squares, you get two identical hourglass units.  These units measure 4 1/4 inches square unfinished.  The edges on the outside of the units are on the straight of grain, which makes them less likely to stretch.
 

 

To make the four patch blocks, I cut two squares 4 1/4 in. from another fabric in the same color family, and sewed them to the hourglass units.  The resulting blocks finished at 7.5 in.

I realize this is an odd measurement.  The hourglass units could be trimmed down to 4 in. easily, which might make them easier to use with other shapes.  If you do that, the hourglass units would be 3.5 in. finished, and the four patch blocks would finish at 7 in. square.

I have never seen this method before, but it's possible somebody else came up with it first.  If you know who that might be, please tell me in the comments, and I'll give them credit.

And of course, if you make a quilt from this tutorial, I would love to see it!

Happy Quilting!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Yellow Times Two

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  Yellow has been our Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for March, and it has really brightened up my sewing room.  (Thanks, Angela!)

It's the last Sunday of the month, so I'm showing quilts from my collection.  It seems like a good time for this yellow pair.

They're twins!  I apologize for all the photos in this post.  It has been raining for days here, so not much natural light.  I ran out this morning and hung the quilts on the clothesline for some quick pix before the rain started in again.

It's somewhat unusual for a 19th century quilt to be set with yellow.  Not rare, just not something you see every day.

It's even more unusual to see a matched pair!  I bought them in a quilt shop run by a friend many years ago.  They were probably made around 1890, but I have no information on the maker or makers.  My guess is they were intended to be used on twin beds in the same room.

Here's quilt #1.  Reproduction fabric lovers, do you recognize this print?  (I think it looks like a light bulb.)

The yellow "light bulb" print has been reproduced in modern times!  I actually have two pieces of this print in my stash, which I've placed on the right and the left of this photo.  It's not just the bad lighting, these prints are considerably lighter and less "greenish" than the original.

The blocks in both quilts are pieced in this pattern which has lots of names, like Hourglass and Yankee Puzzle.  The oldest name found in print by Barbara Brackman in her Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns is Big Dipper (#1195a).  Did you notice the yellow triangle pieced into the block, the same fabric as the setting fabric?  Not something quilters today would ordinarily do.  Also, take note of the pink fabric on the bottom right.  We're going to see it again.

Isn't this backing a hoot?  It's cheater cloth!  That is, it's printed to look like a crazy pieced quilt.  It has also been brought over to the front as a very narrow binding.

Now for quilt #2.  Kind of the same, right?

The yellow print reads the same from a distance, but is totally different up close.

Remember that pink?  Here it is, being used to finish the border.    (Did she run out of yellow?)  None of the blocks in this quilt have any of this pink in them, but it's in several blocks in quilt #1.

This black fabric is the backing of quilt #2, and it has a red solid binding.  Look how the binding is sewn down on the back with a running stitch instead of the more invisible whip stitch or applique stitch.

 Although the blocks are the same, they are different sizes.  The blocks in quilt #1 are about an inch bigger.  

The slight differences make me wonder.  Quilt #1 has better workmanship than quilt #2--was it made by a different person?  Could these quilts have been a mother-daughter project?  I also wonder why neither of them have very much wear.  Were they put away for company, or did yellow go out of fashion for home decorating?  Sadly, I will never know.  (Note to self--don't forget to put labels on the quilts you make!)

The block is simple to cut and sew, but has a lot of seams to match.  I made one block, just to see if I'd like it.

All the pieces in the blocks are what we quilters call quarter square triangles.  This means they are cut with the straight grain on the outside edge.  There are several ways to make them, but I like using the Companion Angle ruler for three reasons:  1.  No math formulas needed.  2.  No lines to mark on fabric.  3.  I already have the ruler.

For my block, I used 2.5 in. strips.  I cut 8 dark triangles and 8 light triangles, and laid them out by the machine.  I tried to use repro fabric that reminded me of the yellow quilts.

Oops!  What's wrong with this picture?  Apparently, it is easy to get these hourglass units turned around.  At least for me.

There, that's better.  Thank goodness for seam rippers.

My block is 8.5 in. unfinished.  I'm not sure what I'll do with it.  I might need a table runner.  Or some new pot holders.

 In other news, we went antique shopping last weekend.  I didn't find any quilts (not exactly looking!) but I got some cute quilt note cards, a ceramic bunny Easter decoration, and a shamrock cookie cutter.  I thought I had one, but it disappeared (leprechauns?), so we had round cookies with green sugar sprinkles for St. Patrick's Day instead of shamrocks.  I'm ready for next year, though.

When it's rainy and cold, we have to find things to do indoors.  My little grandsons have been using Grandpa's magnifying glasses to look at gemstones.  Big Buddy says he's "studying rocks".

My little guy goes from serious to silly in a hurry.  He makes us laugh every day.

Life is short!  Let's all laugh, love, and quilt!

Have a great week, everyone!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap