Frogs, Cats, Chips, and Swatches

Welcome to Treadlestitches! 

It's been harder to adjust to being in a different time zone for vacation than I expected.  We came home a week ago yesterday, and my sleep cycle is still not completely back to normal.  I'm hoping to get straightened out this weekend.

Meanwhile, I had this little quilt more than halfway done before we left, so it wasn't too much work to get it finished.

Can you see the frogs?  This was a big print I bought at a rummage sale, and I didn't want to cut it up too small.  The poison dart frogs are very realistic, and I'm sure some kid will enjoy them.

I've used this pattern several times when I had a large print that I couldn't figure out what to do with.  It's a free pattern from Quilts for Kids (Click HERE for the pattern page.  When you click on the pattern title a PDF will download). It's just a 4 patch with alternate blocks so not difficult at all. 

 Did you catch the orange accents?  I added them just because I liked orange with the dark blue, but I'll claim credit for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for August.

The back is this grasshopper print.  I got it at the same rummage sale.  There's even some orange in it.

 Speaking of orange, orange cats!  I could almost makes these blocks in my sleep, now that I've made so many. It's so much fun choosing fabrics for these silly kitties.

My favorite fabrics to use are cat prints, like the one above.  It even has a tuxedo cat like my big buddy Snicklefritz!

I'm only making 4 potato chip blocks every month, so it wasn't too tough to sew them up.  Most of the rectangles were already cut.  I do admit to doing some un-sewing when I put the light ones in the center by mistake.

Do you know that saying, "Wherever you go, there you are"?  Wherever I go, I'm still a quilter, and still seeing things from that perspective.

For example, this:

Lovely squares in bright colors are on this enclosure in the Vienna airport.  I wanted to know what was inside.  It's a place for smokers to get a few last puffs before a flight. The idea is that the cigarette smoke is contained there and goes out through ceiling vents.  However, the door is constantly opening and closing as people enter and exit, letting the smoke out into the rest of the airport, so I think they need to rework the idea.  Still pretty though.

On one of our last days in Vienna, we went to the Museum of Applied Arts, abbreviated MAK.  There were some amazing exhibits of all sorts, from "architecture" at protest movements like Occupy Wall Street to Art Deco furniture and glassware.  (Click HERE for their web site.)

Fabric design is definitely an applied art!

How's this for orange?  This is a fabric design created on paper in 1927.  I don't know if it was ever made onto cloth, but I would be happy to buy a yard or two!

This one by the same artist was even better!  Sort of pre-Kaffe Fassett.

I was so happy to see these guys when I got home!  They're posing in a cardboard jeep at Vacation Bible School.  We've been having fun enjoying the end of the summer.

I hope you're having fun whatever you are doing this week.  Happy Quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

 

 

 

 

Cats, Flying Geese, and Butterflies

 Welcome to Treadlestitches, and welcome to April!

It's a new month, and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month is yellow.  Now's our chance to cut up our yellow scraps and sew them into blocks for future quilts.  I started with my Rainbow Kitties, just because they're so much fun.  

I think of these more like stuffed animals than real cats.  In addition to prints with birds and dogs, we've got stars, swirls, flowers, and even sushi.  I can hardly wait to put these into quilts for children.

Yellow is really brightening up the sewing room, especially on all the rainy days this week.  Yellow scraps also looked good today, when we had sun and blue skies.

The yellow 3-D Flying Geese are flying in this week, too.  I'm getting lots of ideas of what to make with them when I have all the colors done.  I might try a couple of different options. 

Last week I mentioned this project, a UFO dating from (probably) the 1970s, that started out with large butterfly-shaped blocks to applique, and which I changed to these pieced butterfly blocks.  Here are the yellow ones.  A very bright (screaming?) yellow was popular in the 70s, and often had little flowers/figures in blue, red, and green.  I'm finishing the quilt as a donation to charity from the ladies at the church where our quilt guild meets.  This week I got all 20 blocks done, so I'm excited to choose sashing, cornerstone, and border fabrics.

Just a word about poly-cotton fabric.  Processes to make it were invented starting in the 1950s, and by the mid 1960s even kids like me had heard of "permanent press".  I remember my grandmother talking about how great it was with the neighbor lady.  Ironing was a huge chore when clothes were made of 100% cotton.  By the 1970s, when I was starting to quilt, it was tough to find any 100% cotton in the fabric stores.

There are lots of different kinds of polyester and poly cotton fabrics from this time period.  The best ones are 50% poly and 50% cotton.  Almost all the gingham in this era is 65% poly and 35% cotton, and it is slippery, nearly see-through, and pills after just a few washings.  Not ideal.

When I chose which butterflies to use, I picked the ones that would hold up the best and would also contrast with the muslin background.  I ended up with 16 blocks, and added 4 more from my vintage scraps.  I didn't use the original blue gingham, but I replaced it with a red and white vintage cotton gingham (I'll show more pictures as I finish the top).

I'm enjoying "remodeling" this old project, and I hope the church ladies will be pleased.

On a rainy Saturday afternoon, I started work on this puzzle.  It's called Caterday Afternoon.  See all the cats?  I didn't even try to count them all.  There were only 500 pieces in it, and it was great fun finding all the colorful cats.  Not too challenging, but I'm not working puzzles to drive myself crazy!  As I worked on it I realized several reasons why I liked it.

There were at least two tuxedo cats, which Snicklefritz and I heartily approved.

Books about knitting sat on shelves.  Hmm, there are a few books like that in this house.  Lots of the cats in the puzzle had knitted sweaters.  Hard to imagine cats putting up with that!  I'm just knitting dish cloths with cotton yarn at the moment.  (Isn't it fun how variegated yarn turns out?)

The cat puzzle also had several houseplants.  After a long winter, I'm building up my windowsill garden with herbs.  The rosemary and lavender survived from last year, and I've added this basil...

and thyme.  The last two were small plants from the grocery store which are happily growing, especially on days like today when the sun encourages them.

I'm not sure what these blue flowers are called.  They were blooming at a school where my Little Guy has speech lessons.  It's lovely to see flowers coming back to life.  Welcome, Spring!  Glad you're here.

I'm glad you are here, too!  Have a wonderful week, whatever the weather gives us.

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

P.S.  One more photo of our little boys at the Children's Museum, specifically the Harley exhibit:

Go, guys, go!  But don't forget your helmets!

 

Bricks and Bananas

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Finally, this quilt is out of the problem pile and done!  I pieced it at least a month ago from bricks blocks I made as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge last year.  Then I layered it, basted it, and started quilting.  Turns out my basting was very very bad, causing tucks and other unspeakable faults.  So I pulled out the quilting I had done, took the quilt apart (sigh), and started over.  You gotta do what you gotta do.

Check out the border--it's bananas.  Literally, a print of bananas on blue that looks like denim.  I'm so happy I still have some of this fun fabric.
 

This is the 4th and last Bricks quilt, and at 48 in. x 54 in. it's the biggest one.  I'm hoping to donate it to Quilts Beyond Borders.  I think I followed all the rules, but I'll check with them to make sure.

It was fun making these blocks last year.  Especially since each one only has two seams!  I'm going to keep this pattern in mind to use again.  The free pattern is called Forest Bricks, and comes from Marysquilts.com, click HERE.

The back is this red plaid from the stash, and the binding is the same fabric I used for the dark blue in last week's Lightning Streak quilt. 

There are a few more projects in the problem pile, but at least one is now problem-free.

 The purple 3-D flying geese are done.  I'm realizing how small they are (finishing at 2 in. x 4 in.) and how many I'll need for finished quilts, so I'm making lots of them.  These are easy too, just one seam.

More cats!  I keep finding more cute fabric to make into pieced cats.  I am inspired by some stuffed cats my grandkids have, called Cats Vs. Pickles (Click HERE to go to their web page.)  These cute little cats are all different colors and are soft and snuggly.  Even the pickles are cute.

When I bought the fabric for the green cat above, I thought the print was shamrocks, which would be fun for St. Patrick's Day on Sunday.  (In my defense, I snagged it out of a sale bin at a crowded quilt show and didn't get a good look.  I needed green anyway.)  It's still a cute cat, and I'll add it in with January's other green kitties.

Our guild's block of the month is this Pineapple Block, seen here made up in my yellow scraps.  I wonder what a whole quilt of pineapples would look like?  Hmm, or maybe lots of other tropical blocks?

Here's Buddy, putting a real pineapple on his head because the Minions do (?)  Or just because he's being goofy.  We all love fresh pineapple, and it was on sale this week at the grocery, so why not.
 

These little guys have just discovered video games, oh dear.  Their dad and uncle play online, and they get to watch.  Here they're pretending to be heroic characters.  Buddy and Little Guy have also been playing Mario Cart on the weekends.  They can hardly wait for Friday.

We've had some warm days this week.  It's a joy to go to the park with my Little Guy.  He was pretending to be a super hero, and told me we needed to "vacuum the city".  It took me a minute to get it.  "Do you mean evacuate the city?"  He nodded.  We got all the pretend people out, and he learned a new word.

I hope you are all having fun, and NOT vacuuming cities, unless you want to of course.  I'm wishing you a Happy St. Patrick's Day on Sunday, and a wonderful week ahead.

Thanks for reading!

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at SoScrappy

 

UFO Alert, and Purple Rainbow Kitties

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

This week I finished a UFO, used up 16 orphan blocks, and did some fancier (for me) quilting--all in the same little quilt! (I promise it's not crooked, the angle is just weird here, sorry!)

This is the block.  I made a lot of these using bright colored batik scraps I got at a quilt show many years ago.  I didn't have the vast stash of brights then that I have now, so everything possible just got thrown in.  And then I bought some more!  

Here's the back, leftover from another quilt.  I bound it in solid orange, just for fun.

The pattern comes from this book, Scrap-Basket Beauties, by Kim Brackett.  There are so many great quilts in here!  Kim Brackett is a genius.

This is the pattern, and I'm sure you can tell I changed it a little.  There are two kind of blocks in the pattern, an A block and a B block.  I used only the B blocks for my little quilt.

When I first saw it, the design reminded me of a Double Wedding Ring, with way less work.  Which was perfect, because I wanted to make a quilt for a wedding.  I got all the blocks done, but the wedding never happened.  (No tragedy or anything, they're still together, just not married.)  I could still have given them the quilt, but by now I had hit the roadblock of How Am I Going to Quilt This.

I always knew I wanted some fancier quilting where the blocks come together, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it.  I don't do free motion quilting (yet?), I quilt with a walking foot.  A large quilt with all these spaces just seemed daunting.  I put it away, and the years just kept flying by.

Two years ago, I dragged out the blocks and remodeled the setting to a twin size.  These blocks, plus a couple more, were left over from the remodel, and got made into a small top.  This week I finally pulled up my big girl pants and quilted the little top.  It wasn't easy, but not too horrible either.  So is there hope for the bigger quilt?  Well, maybe.

In other news, purple cats!  Purple is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.  When I found out yesterday evening, I ran up to the sewing room and made these.  March will be a fun month.  Purple is my favorite color.

I had just finished making these green cats for January, so I'm caught up on Rainbow Kitties now.  BTW, the one in the lower left corner really is a light green, not aqua as I'm seeing on the computer monitor.

Last Tuesday was a wonderfully warm day (60 degrees F!).  Little Guy and I went to the playground and played in the backyard too.  And well, it did snow again on Wednesday, but only a little that has already melted off.  Maybe spring is coming early to Wisconsin?  I would love it, but I'm not going to count on it.

Guess who has a birthday!  It's Little Guy!  He'll be 4 years old this week.  We're going to his party today, so I better get a move on.  I've got presents to wrap and cupcakes to frost.  There may even be sprinkles.

Have a wonderful week, no matter what the weather is.

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

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Little 4 Patch, Book Blocks, and Rainbow Kitties

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

These little 4 patches are now a finished baby-sized quilt, ready for donation. 

I started with a set of 15 blocks I got at our quilt guild's silent auction (like the one with those hilarious cows), plus lots of loose squares.  I added in 2 in. squares from my stash, to make blocks that finish at 3 in.  (Quilting is the only place where 2 plus 2 equals 3.)  The finished quilt has 72 pieced blocks and 71 alternate blocks of the light fabric, set 11 x 13.

The border is this bugs fabric.  Bugs in real life are gross, but these guys are cute.  They're even smiling.

The back is this hand print fabric.  For the first time ever, I used a frankenbatt in this quilt, and it turned out okay.  Maybe this will help motivate me to make more frankenbatting, to clean up that part of the basement.

I love getting other people's scraps.  There are always prints I've never seen before, like these white cats on blue, or the koala on black.

Quilt guild was this week.  The amazing Nancy, Queen of Scraps, had a new community project for us, making a bookshelf quilt for an organization that helps needy kids get books.  Count me in!  I picked up two kits with background and brown "shelf" pieces, and added strips from my stash for the books. 

For this block, I chose "classic" prints, like paisleys, florals, and stripes.

 Of course I had to make a shelf of novelty print books.  These represent books about animals, which are always favorites for kids.  I think I made these too tall.  In hindsight, I think I would mix things up a bit more.  Maybe someday I'll make my own bookshelf quilt.  

Digging through the stash to find just the right fabrics has left the sewing room an absolute disaster, so straightening up is top of the to-do list today.

Does this ever happen to you?  I've decided on yet another Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.

At the end of last year, I saw this pattern in American Patchwork and Quilting, Oct. 2023 issue.  It was made with black and orange cats for Halloween.  I made a few blocks to test the pattern and loved them, but wasn't sure what I was going to do with them.  Now I know!  I'm going to make Rainbow Kitties this year for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I need to make the green ones for January, but I can catch up okay.  I hate to admit, I've had this happen even much later in the year!

Hey!  What's that lump in the bed?

It's Snicklefritz, getting cozy on a cold day.  Two days this week, the temps were in the 50s F.  Yesterday we had snow, which is still on the ground.  Weather is weird this year.

My lovely Amaryllis is blooming again, and appropriately red for the last Saturday in February.  You can see the dusting of snow on the bushes outside the window.

Even though we've got colder weather, we know we're heading in the right direction.  Spring is (eventually) coming.  In the meantime, we can stay cozy inside (like Snicklefritz!) and keep doing things we love.  Like quilting!

Have a lovely week, and thanks for visiting!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

 Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Cynthia at Oh Scrap