Orange Houses and Leftovers

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!

It's the last Saturday in May, and that means it's the last week of orange month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Sewing up the orange scraps has been so much fun.  These little houses are my last RSC project.

My very favorite one is this print of Horton the elephant from the Dr. Seuss stories.  Isn't it amazing how many different shades there are of any given color?

Now for the leftovers.  I have to admit, I love leftovers when it comes to food.  My favorite lunch is supper left over from the night before.  I keep a close eye on the leftovers in the refrigerator and try to use them up quickly, but I tend to forget about the quilting leftovers.  They are mostly shoved into a drawer.

This week I opened the drawer.

Right away I found a bag of tumblers left over from several quilts I made years ago.  There were enough lights and darks to make a small quilt top.

I admit, I am not totally thrilled with the color placement, etc.  Maybe I should have mixed things up a bit more.  And if I was making it from scratch, I would have chosen different fabrics.  But the object of this exercise was to use up the leftovers and make a quilt for a child who needs one, so I'm telling my inner critic to chill out.

Snicklefritz has taken on the job of quilt model, so I guess I should give him a raise.  He's showing off the kid friendly prints:  numbers, Clifford, D.W. from Arthur, Curious George's animal friends, dinosaurs, ABCs, and Peter Rabbit.

There were a few tumblers that were still left behind.  I cut them up into useful pieces:  a 2.5 in. square, a 2.5 x 3.5 in. rectangle, and a larger scrap for crumb blocks.  The rest was too small to use, and was tossed.  No guilt!
 

Also in the drawer were some red and white cut pieces given to me by a friend.  They measured 3 in. square, which is not a size I normally use.  (The math is easier if the squares finish at a whole number.  I really need the math to be easy!)  Some were already sewn into sets of two.

I made the squares into four patches, which finished at 5 in.  I had to add in a few of my own reds and whites, and of course the alternate squares and borders.

The blue M&Ms fabric came from a thrift store.  It was a strip about 15 in. wide and 3 yards long, so it must have also been somebody's leftover.  From the campaign hats and only having red and blue M&Ms, I think it's meant to be political, and represents both of our political parties.

This is all I had left!  I cut all the squares on the right to 2.5 in. (like the one on the left) and added them to the rest of the 2.5 in. squares.  These will be put into blocks, for the RSC or other projects.

I'm almost as happy as the little orange frog jumping for joy in this square. While I was working on leftovers I finished my Amanda blocks!

This pattern was just what I like--easy and fun to sew, and uses up scraps.

But now I have a problem.  I tend to cut too many pieces so I can be flexible about colors.  What do I do with these leftover strips?  

It really never ends, does it?  And I guess I'm okay with that.

The Sandhill cranes are back!  I love watching them in the park behind our house.  They are such beautiful, graceful birds.  The weather here has been lovely, a nice beginning to summer.

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead, whatever the weather is like where you live.  Happy Memorial Day weekend to all in the U.S.!

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at Super Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

Three Kinds of Blocks

 Welcome to Treadlestitches!  We'd like to show you what we've been up to this week.

We do have a division of labor here at the Treadlestitches Quiltworks.  I do the sewing, and Mr. Snicklefritz makes sure all the blocks are inspected, laid on, and properly wrinkled.

Like these bricks blocks!  It's orange month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and the bricks blocks are one of my RSC projects.  I'm trying to use mostly novelty prints in these, but orange novelties can be hard to find (don't worry, I'll keep looking!). At first I only had six prints that could even remotely fill the bill, so I made two of each.

Lots of different orange prints are in the uneven nine patch blocks.  These finish at 8.5 in. and are made from 4 charm squares (2 light and 2 dark).

I hunted through everything to find more orange prints.  You should see the mess in the sewing room!  

The kitty fat quarter was hiding in the multi-color bin.  I love it best of all.  And there are plenty of scraps left to make a couple more bricks blocks.

So that's what "we" have accomplished this week, with the exception of a large amount of items definitely Not Finished.  Plus a sewing room that looks like a cyclone went through.

For our anniversary last Monday, we went to a couple of antique malls.  Hubs got books, I found this set of blocks.  I had fun arranging them into quilt patterns.

Our Little Guy enjoyed the blocks too.  Here he's making a snake. (Oh, dear, I'm not a fan of snakes!)

I had to show this during orange month!  Hubs painted the bathroom orange.  I was a little worried about it at first.  I was imagining screaming glow-in-the-dark orange, but it's more of a creamsicle color.  It goes well with the blue fixtures and blue accents.

More painting!  I got lots of wonderful presents for Mothers Day, including these little lanterns made by Buddy and Little Guy.  Can you see the unpainted heart shape in the middle?  They had lots of help from their Mama.

The warmer weather is bringing all the plants to life, including the weeds.  Little Guy and I tackled the strawberry bed this week.  I'm so happy to see the blossoms.  But I'd better hurry and get a barrier rigged up for the birds, or they'll get all the berries!

We're going to a birthday party later today, so time to get busy and wrap the presents.  Have a wonderful week, and thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy, Home of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

More Orange, John Deere, and Amanda

Welcome to Treadlestitches!

This week's orange blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge are 16 patches, with 8 different orange prints and 8 different light prints.  These are fun to make. 

The cute carrot fabric came from my friend Joey's scraps, as did some other yummy orange prints.

I think that's my favorite part of making quilt blocks--putting together adorable scraps.

Where do all these scraps come from?  Well, here's one place--my local quilt store!  They have a giant basket of scraps that customers are welcome to root through.  We can fill up a bag for a small price, and take them home.  Wanna see what I got?

All this was in that bag!  Good quality fabric scraps, just waiting to be made into quilts.

Like this one!  I finished the little farm quilt this week.
 

The blue and white striped "My John Deere" fabric was a small piece I bought in an antique mall, and I used up nearly every bit of it.

The dark blue squares and the narrow inner border were in the same fat quarter bundle I got at a recent quilt show.  (I always look for whatever fabrics are marked down at the show, of course.  Don't you?) 

The batting is poly.  I cut it from a thicker poly and then just pulled it in half to make it thinner.  It actually worked!  Still soft, but not quite as puffy.  And there's another half ready to be used!  Bad news, though, it means I can make twice as many quilts from the giant batting  rolls Joey got for me.  Gotta sew faster!

The back of the quilt is this John Deere tractor print.  The quilt will be donated to Project Linus locally.  I'm hoping it will go to some little farm girl or boy.  God bless the farmers, we all need them.

More scraps are in my new project above.  (Check out the scrap from the farm quilt!  Leftovers from one quilt go into the next one, of course!  And on and on forever!)

The block is called Amanda, and comes from Me and My Sister Designs.  I've had this book forever, but just suddenly realized it would be perfect for my 3.5 in. squares and 1.5 in. wide strips.

Here's the front cover of the book, it's 3 Times the Charm, by Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson.  They call it that because each quilt pattern is made up into three quilts, and most of the pieces can be cut from charm squares.  All of the patterns have women's names.  There are 3 more books in the series.

My 1.5 in. wide strips live in this little overnight case.  I sorted them, and separated out the light prints, solids, pinks, and blacks.  The big pile is Everything Else.  Amanda is going to be a fun quilt!

I may use the black prints for this project, but not the others.  I also moved the very short strips to the schnibbles box to be made into crumb blocks. 

Now that the kids are well again, we're having fun on the playground!  It seems I always take a photo of one or another of them inside this orange tube during orange month!  Our Little Guy was thrilled to be climbing up it again and enjoying the nice weather.

Rain is expected for this weekend, so we'll try to enjoy the sunshine while we can.  I'm wishing sunshine and scrappy fun for you too this week.

Cheers for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Sarah at Can I Get A Whoop Whoop  

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Oh Scrap

 

 

Hands 2 Help Check In: Two More and One on the Way

Welcome to Treadlestitches! 

 Two more quilts are ready for donation for the Hands 2 Help annual drive.

Here's an I Spy baby/child quilt made from 5 in. squares.

Novelty prints, plus bananas in the border.
 

Next, Hourglass four patch in bright colors.

Mostly NOT novelty prints, except for these cats in the border.

Those are done, and will be going to Project Linus next week.

Next, this one is the one on the way.  I'm layering it up today, and might even get some of the quilting done.

It's a little farm quilt, with lots of cows and chickens and a few sheep.  Oh, and John Deere tractors.

Right now I've got an old Loretta Lynn song going through my head, called One's On the Way. When looking it up this morning, I learned it was written by Shel Silverstein of Where the Sidewalk Ends fame.  Who knew?

I love seeing what everyone is making to help others.

Happy quilting!

Linking up to Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

 

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