Churning Through the Scraps

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

I picked up the kit for these Churn Dash blocks at a quilt group meeting in April.  They were made from 1930s reproduction fabrics donated to the group.  I sewed the blocks on my treadle and put them together with yardage from my stash.  One of our volunteer long arm quilters will quilt it, and it will eventually be donated locally.

These colors and prints are so cheerful.  A quilt appraiser friend once told me the impression most people have of 1930s fabrics is lots of pastels, and there are plenty, but there was also widespread use of what she called "crayon colors", like red, orange, and dark blue.

The kit didn't include white squares for the centers, so I added the solid color ones.

Here's my favorite block, the one on the right.  It's made from a colorful fruit print, plus an orange solid square.  It's the only one like it in the quilt.

Orange is our Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month, and I am so glad!  I really love orange, and try to find orange fabric wherever I can. 

This week I pulled out all the big scraps, little scraps, fat quarters, etc. to start cutting.  (Does your ironing board collect mess like mine does?)

I started with Bright Hopes, since that's the easiest/fastest one.  The Hot Wheels rectangles came from Mr. M, who donated so much wonderful stash/scraps/etc. to our guild.

I'm having less time to sew now.  Want to see why?

These wild hooligans are off school for the summer.  Thank goodness we've been able to get outside most days to run off some of their energy.

I've also had a big project to work on:  cleaning out my quilt stuff in the basement.

Remember this from last week?

All of these vintage scraps have now been sorted.  Many of them were actually useless, just tiny scraps or low quality fabric, or had stains or other problems.  The bad ones have been trashed and the decent ones I didn't want/need were bagged up for the museum sale (drop off next week).

Here's what I kept:

The bag is full of feedsack strips for a string quilt.  The larger pieces of fabric next to the bag are left over from dresses I made for my oldest daughter back in 1979.  All the rest are scraps from 1930s to 1960s or so.

These are some of the fun fabrics I kept.  Bears in canoes, purple strawberries, and a floral print with what looks like the Liberty Bell on it.  I love weird stuff, old or new.

I also salvaged a rainbow of solid scraps.  They will be put to good use!

Every year, the Humane Society has a huge rummage sale at the county fairgrounds.  Last year I scored a vintage iron there for a dollar, and it lasted nearly a year.  This year I got this little G.E. iron for only 50 cents.  It's slightly smaller than my regular iron, and is a Dry Iron, so no steam.  This is perfect for me, I don't even use steam.  We'll see how long it lasts.  I feel like I've already gotten my money's worth.

The book I found at the sale is called Quilts From the Heart:  Quick Projects for Generous Giving, by Karin Renaud.  I had never seen this book before, but it's absolutely perfect for me!  Simple patterns, bright colors, and the author even loves novelty prints.  How did I miss this?  It was published in 2006.  I gladly paid 50 cents for it, and have already started one of the quilts.

Good news:  Mrs. Pfaff is back!!  My dear "coworker" and beloved sewing machine is back from the repair shop and sewing again.  I can't wait to get some quilting done.  But first I need to go to the Farmers Market, so I'd better wind this up.

Thanks for reading this long-winded spiel! Have a lovely week!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Check out all the great blogs at these linky parties!

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

Charm Stars, Sisters Choice, and Hard Choices

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

A new quilt top is dancing in the breeze!  The pattern is Charm Stars and Four Patches, by Quilted Forest (click HERE for the Youtube video).  A little squirrel made me start this project a few weeks ago.

I was looking for a quilt to use up some of my charm squares, and this one really did the job.  Each star block uses 2 matching charm squares plus background rectangles cut from 2.5 in. strips.  The four patches use 4 charm squares each.  All told, I used 90 charm squares.  And I still can't quite get the lid on the box!

Each star is made from novelty prints.  I chose other fabrics for the four patches, prints like dots and plaids and stripes and a few florals.  The quilt measures 51.5 in. x 60 in. and will be donated to the Child Advocacy Center.

Here's one of the green blocks, with an adorable baby giraffe in the center.

More green blocks!  These Sisters Choice blocks are the last ones I'm making for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for May.  Yet another Green Bay Packers block.  I don't even like football.  It's just part of living in Wisconsin.

May has brought us lots of rain, as is usual here, but also lovely sunshine and the beginning of summer.  Buddy and Little Guy like to pose on the "picture bench" in the park.  They only have one more full day of school left before summer vacation.

Hubby and I went antiquing last weekend, and we discovered that many of the antique malls have changed, becoming more like thrift stores.  I was delighted to find more fun fabrics for kid quilts for excellent prices.

I'm trying to get some things done before I have more babysitting time with the boys.  Apricots were on sale, so I made a batch of jam.  I have several European recipes that use apricot jam, so now I'll have it on hand.

The basement cleanout of my fabric continues.  Lizzy keeps and eye on my progress from her perch on a pile of quilts.

 

This is my project for next week.

I have two bins and a bushel basket chock full of vintage scraps, from the 1920s through the 1960s.  The empty bin is for whatever I decide to keep.  And that's all!  The rest will go to the museum sale in a couple of weeks.  Hard choices are coming my way.  Wish me luck!

I wish you luck, too, in whatever you're working on.  Have a great week!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Check out the great linky parties below!

Finished or Not Finished Friday, hosted by Alycia

So Scrappy, hosted by Angela

Oh Scrap, hosted by Cynthia

Waves, Soap, and Duckies

Happy Friday!  It's gloomy, rainy, and cool here (50s!  In August??) but a good day for quilting.  Heck, every day is a good day for quilting!  My almost-finish for this week is a give-away quilt.

You might recognize the shapes.  They're tumblers, cut with the Accuquilt cutter by one of our members.  There were 48 of the duckie tumblers cut when I got them.  I tried to figure out a layout that would use all of them.  In the end, I needed 49, so the center tumbler was a different duckie print, cut from some of my wonderful novelty fabric.

I added solid fabrics from my stash, and this daisy print for the backing.  The daisy print was originally bought to go with another quilt, but it works okay with this one.

Mr. Biddy is supervising here.  He went to the vet yesterday, and they think he's doing pretty good for being a 15 year old cat.

You've seen the duckies.  Here's where the waves and soap come in.
I am a walking-foot quilter.  The walking foot on my Pfaaf is built in, which is great.  Most of this tumbler quilt was quilted about 1/4 in. from each seam, but I got a little fancy in the outer border with these waves.  It's one of my favorite stencils, and this time I used soap to mark the lines.

I've used soap to mark other quilts, but I didn't think it would work on stencils.  After all, soap is wide, and you have to mark through a fairly narrow channel.  I tried it, just for giggles, and found that the plastic edges of the channels cut through the soap enough to leave quite nice marks.
Warning--it does have the same major drawback as chalk.  The marks will easily wear off if you touch them while quilting.  To counter this, I marked one border at a time (these aren't continuous), and tried to hold the quilt by the outer edges as I quilted, grasping mostly the batting and backing.

Here's what it looks like quilted.  I never try to make these waves turn the corners, I just run the lines to the edge of the quilt or start/stop at the corner seams.

Isn't this a happy print?  Our quilt group regularly donates quilts to a local charity that helps homeless families find apartments.  This quilt will go to a child who needs it.

Now all I have to do is bind it!

Here's what's on my makeshift design wall this week.  I started these blocks about a year ago, and made 42 of the small ones.  But look what happens when you put 4 together!  So far, I am loving it.  I have to make LOTS more blocks, which is what I'm sewing on my treadle in the top photo.  I'm also using my 1930s and 1940s scraps to good purpose.
What are you working on this week?  Why not join me at the linky party at Busy Hands Quilts?   It's always a good time.
Cheers,
Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Scraps of Fabric, Scraps of Time

Hurray!  Not only is the Pyramids quilt all in one piece, it is quilted!

I'm still working on the binding, so the dark blue edge you can see in the photos will be much smaller when I'm done.

After dithering for a week or so, I did some very simple quilting in the borders.

I used masking tape to mark straight lines, and quilted on either side of it.

Just for fun, I added a serpentine stitch next to each straight line.  It's hard to see here, sorry.

I've had lots of help this week!  Here's my youngest grandson playing on the "terrible" quilt I finished a few weeks ago.  I'm liking this quilt more now that I'm using it.  It's still badly made, but the baby doesn't care, so neither do I.

Biddy the cat had to get into the act, too.  I was (finally) binding the Daisy quilt on the kitchen table when he decided to take a nap in it.  I think of the Daisy quilt as a "sister" to the Pyramids quilt since they have the same backing fabric.

In other news, I finished sewing the rows together for the red rail fence quilt.  It's in two pieces, ready for me to find a vintage backing in the basement and start quilting.

Here's a short tutorial on joining rows with sashing and no cornerstones, like the red rail fence.
First, sew a long sashing to a row of blocks.
Next, using a ruler and a pencil, make a mark on the sashing where the seams would line up.  This is what I'm doing in the photo below.

Make small marks, that will be in the seam allowance when the next row is sewn on.

You can barely see the marks in the photo above.
Now line up the sashing seams in the next row with these marks, and pin.  Stitch.

If all goes well, your vertical sashings will line up across the whole quilt.

I'm still finding time to sew, even with my busier schedule, although I may not get around to blogging every week.  I really love reading all the blog posts and seeing what everybody is up to at Crazy Mom Quilts and Busy Hands Quilts.  
I'm linking up there today.

I'm wishing you warm hugs and flying needles this week.

Clean Up On Aisle One

Do you ever go into your sewing room, see an awful mess, and just decide not to see it?  After all, you only have a little time to quilt.  Who wants to spend that time folding stuff, sorting stuff, and hauling stuff to the basement?  I came in here to sew.  Right?

Eventually it does get to be too much, even for me.   These are the before pictures.
Before I folded, and sorted, and hauled stuff to the basement.  Before I dusted and rearranged items on my shelves.  Before I vacuumed.
Warning--the next photo is dirty and disgusting.

This is the dirt I dumped out from the vacuum cleaner.  I filled the whole canister with just the sewing room dirt.

Ah, the after pictures.  I had to take a couple of pictures right away, before I mess it up again.  It's always a huge challenge to vacuum under the treadle pedal, since I can't move the treadle by myself.  I used the vacuum hose and even scooped out lint and fabric trimmings with my fingers.  Remind me not to trim dog ears at the treadle!

Look, Ma, no piles of stuff to trip over!
I feel a little better now.

Here's my finish this week--a doll quilt, shown here on an antique doll bed.

If it looks weird, there's a good reason.  The quilt is made from pieces of an 1870s quilt top.  The original quilt must have been a 9 patch set with off white sashing and double pink cornerstones.  The pieces were rolled up in a bundle of fabric I bought at a flea market.  They weren't blocks, just pieces, and many of the pieces looked like they had been chewed (mice?  Eww!)  I wish I had taken a picture of them.  Anyway, I cut the ragged edges off and assembled them together.  There really wasn't a way to match up squares, blocks, etc.  The border is from my stash of 1900s fabrics.

I just couldn't give up on these wonderful madder browns.

So I made a whole quilt this week!  It's about the size of a hand towel, but hey, it's finished!

I'm still making progress on my vintage scrap bag quilts.

After I finished all the rail fence blocks, I had to take them down to the living room to lay them out.

Then I started making rows, sewing a 2 in. x 5 in. red solid piece in between each block.

Here are the first two rows, set together with a long red sashing.

Close up.  I'm going to put a red border around the outside.  I'm on row #8 of 12 total.

In other news, the Pyramids quilt is finally in one piece!  All the sections are quilted, and the last seam is sewn on the back.  As soon as I get the rows next to the last seam quilted, I can start on the borders.

You'd think I'd be done piecing from the vintage scrap bag, but this antique quilt top gave me an idea.  Look at all those little scraps!

Here's what it looks like on the back.  Each diamond is crazy-pieced on a cloth foundation.

What if I did that--with 6 pointed stars?  I cut the cloth foundation diamonds from feed sacks, using my Accuquilt cutter.  It was kind of fun sewing the pieces onto the foundation.

I pressed the seams open, to avoid some of the bulk.
Now I have to decide.  Do I really want to do this?  And if I do, what color should I set the stars with?  White?  Light blue?  Green?  Orange?  Just not pink, I'm not a big fan of pink.
Oh, boy, here I go again.

One more finish today.  I cut the last of the rhubarb from my little garden, and made a rhubarb pie.  (Good thing I took this picture, it's half gone already, thanks to my husband, my grandson, and me.)

What are YOU working on?  I hope it gives you joy.

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts
and with Myra at Busy Hands Quilts.