Treadlestitches: sea creatures quilt

Saturday, August 19, 2023

A Small Finish, Yellow Blocks, and Glad to be Back

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

Here's where I was last week--Oxford, England! Libraries, museums, and book stores, oh my! We had a wonderful vacation, but I won't bore you with all the details. I might include a few sewing/quilting related things here and there, but no travelog, I promise. (BTW, the photo above is of the Radcliffe Camera, which was built in the 1700s to house the Radcliffe Science Library. Camera in this sense just means "room".)

Here's the small finish, this baby quilt for donation. It measures 42 in. square, and is based on a pattern in this book: The Big Book of Baby Quilts.

There are lots of cute patterns in the book, as I'm sure you can tell from all the post it notes I have stuck in it. Here's the pattern, which they call Over the Rainbow.

I changed it a little, of course, as I almost always do.

The blocks are the same, but I arranged the blocks in this layout by color. The blocks that look pink are actually orange in real life.

My quilt has only one border, this cute ocean print with whales and fish. I had just enough of this little scrap for this project. (Don't you love it when it works out like that?)

There are scraps of other ocean-themed prints in the blocks. Sea horses, colorful fish, whales, anchors, etc. make their appearance.

Plus pirates! Arr, matey! I hope it goes to a kid who loves the ocean.

August is yellow month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Lots of yellows came out to play this week in these Bricks blocks.

This parrot fabric has been in LOTS of my quilts since I bought it while on a retreat. I can't believe there's any left, I'm always so glad to find a few more scraps of it.

Yellow month for the RSC had me pulling out fabric from everywhere, looking for novelty prints.

Did you notice this one? It's sushi! Can you believe I have a whole yard of it? This is the first time I've used it. I don't think kids will have any idea what it is, but their parents may be puzzled by what it's doing in a quilt. Looks delicious, especially the salmon!

After more than a week away, we're adjusting to the time again, and glad to be back.

We really missed our little guys. Buddy is sporting some cool sunglasses.

And Little Guy is testing out the noises he can make with kitchen stuff. Yeah, back to normal!

Finally, a little inspiration. I took this photo of a Rainbow Zebra crossing in Oxford, near West Gate Shopping Center. The center is the usual black and white crosswalk, and the sides have been painted in rainbow colors. The rainbow supports LGBT+ rights, and the center remains black and white to help visually impaired people see the crossing clearly. A great compromise, I thought! And possibly an image that could somehow work on a quilt?

Have a lovely week, everyone!

Cheers for reading,

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

Friday, October 8, 2021

Plus Two More, and Chasing Butterflies

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

I had a wonderful time making quilt blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year, and now I'm putting those blocks into little quilts to donate to babies and children. These two are the last ones using plus blocks. [Did you participate in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge? If not, join us, it's so much fun! Here's the link: RSC 2021.]

After I finished the quilts, I realized they are kind of related to books we've been reading with the grand kids. This book is a lift the flap book, which is Baby Buddy's favorite kind. Kids, books and quilts are three of my favorite things!

The un-pieced block here is an under-the-sea kind of print with some charming ocean critters.

When I finish a quilt, I feel like the minion in the center of the block above. Happy dance!

Here's the back, with a strip of pirate fabric to make it big enough.

The second quilt is set with a solid sashing and a border from one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, Dr. Seuss' ABCs.

My husband and I can very nearly recite this book by heart, having read it to our children and now our grandchildren. Above, a Lazy Lion Licks a Lollipop.

I don't normally buy a special back for these little quilts, but in this case I couldn't resist. I hope the child who gets this quilt loves the wacky world of Dr. Seuss as much as I do.

So that's six little quilts finished so far, from the RSC blocks. There are going to be a lot more. And I'm very happy to be making them, but I'm afraid I've been getting a little obsessed lately. I'm trying to remember that there are no deadlines here, and I can slow down a little and enjoy all the other great things in my life too.

Speaking of great, The Great British Baking Show is back on Netflix! I had to try making these jammy biscuits which were last week's Technical Challenge. I think they turned out okay, although Paul Hollywood would probably find all kinds of things wrong with them.

Little Buddy ate two of them after kindergarten today. Check out the crumbs on his face! No complaints here! Baby Buddy is in the background, dancing to music. I have no idea what the dog is doing.

On the weekend, my oldest daughter spotted this turtle (tortoise?) in the yard. It was fun to see it up close, it had such beautiful markings. It moved a lot faster than we expected.

Can you see what this is? For some reason, after a rain we often find little toads in the window wells on our patio. They keep jumping, but can't get back out. Baby Buddy and I rescued two this week. I think this one was very happy to get back into the flower bed.

Rain kept us home two days this week, but today Baby Buddy and I braved the dark clouds and went to the playground. He was running his toy train on the park bench, which for some reason made both of us laugh.

On our way home, we chased butterflies through the soccer field. Don't worry, we didn't catch any. The real fun is just running after something beautiful.

As the Cat in the Hat reminds us, "It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how."

Have fun this week, doing whatever makes you happy.

Thanks for reading this!