The Treadleon TOBE

Yesterday I talked a bit about the Treadleon Group.  One of the fun things they do is TOBEs, Treadle On Block Exchanges.  Usually they choose a very simple 6" block, so that new members and folks that are new to sewing can participate.  All the blocks are sewn on treadle or hand crank sewing machines.  The blocks are usually signed with the sewist's name, the machine used to sew the blocks, the year the machine was made, if known, and the town/state/country of the sewist.  I took the blocks I had received in the exchange and added lots of 12" blocks that I had made on my machines.  I did one 12" block (made up of 4 of the 6" blocks) on each of the machines I owned at the time.

The 6" block consists of a print fabric 6" half square triangle, a print fabric 3" square, and two 3" half square triangles of muslin.  Most of the blocks use a different print for the large triangle than they do for the square, and I did the same, so the quilt is rich in color and texture.  Because of the values in the blocks, and the way they are arranged, there is a strong overall design.  The blocks are a bit like the Log Cabin block, in that there are many ways that they could be arranged.  That is where a design wall comes in really handy, letting us play with different designs and patterns before making a final decision on the arrangement.

I used Warm 'N Natural batting in this quilt, and plain straight line quilting on my Davis Vertical Feed treadle about 1/8" away from each side of the seams, as some of the blocks had very scant seam allowances, and I wanted to anchor the seams very well.

Tomorrow I'll put up a pic of another TOBE quilt that uses blocks from more than one exchange.