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

Q is for Quilt

 Welcome to Treadlestitches! 

And welcome to November!  I guess it really is fall now, although the grass is still green under the fallen leaves.

A lovely lady in my quilt group gave me an alphabet panel to make into a charity quilt.  I paired it with the red bears print , a second-hand find.  

It's a good thing there were two full alphabets on the panel, because it was very difficult to cut the letters apart and leave enough seam allowance.  Some of the letters were too close to the edge, or too close to other letters.  In the end I only had to fix one the letter, the Y, by adding a strip of white fabric cut from the panel.

T is for turtle, U is for Umbrella, and of course Q is for Quilt!  I did some simple outline quilting on the squares, and parallel lines in the borders.  The binding is the same fabric as the inner border.

Check out the back!  A few weeks ago Hubby and I went antiquing, and I found this print.  There are crayons, hearts, balloons, and, best of all, alphabets.  I hope a little child enjoys this quilt as much as I loved making it.

Did you have a good Halloween?  Our little grandsons definitely did.  Buddy is dressed as his favorite video game character, Link from Legend of Zelda.  Little Guy went as Pikachu, his favorite Pokemon.  After trick or treating, Buddy says he has enough candy now for a year.  

 Last year I made lots of these little houses for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  They're the simplest thing ever, just a 5 in. square with one seam across the top to make a point.  To me, they look like the kind of houses young children draw.  I made one quilt, but had lots of the houses left over.  (Click HERE for more info, my first post about them last January.) 

 By coincidence, I bought this glue stick when visiting with my friend Joey (hi, Joey!  We had such a fun day!) It's made by the same people that make a basting spray I use often.  The glue stick turned out to be just the thing I needed.  I'm using it to stick the little houses to a background 5 in. square so I can topstitch them down.  Works like a charm.

Next I'm adding solid strips all around to make a block I'm calling Happy Houses.  Of course I picked out the Halloween ones to do first!  Ghosts ...

and scary costumes.  The blocks finish at 7.5 in.  

It's been a happy busy beginning of fall.  Last Saturday we went on a short hike with our eldest daughter, her hubby, and our grandkids Mr. H and Miss E.  It was beautiful weather, just a little crisp with lots of sunshine.  (That's me in the back, where I like to be!  Mr. H just refuses to be in photos, so he took the picture.)

From the trail we could see this church, the Basilica and National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, high on the hill above us.  Another wonderful day.

I hope you have wonderful days too, this week and every week.  Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Cynthia at Oh Scrap