Saturday, March 9, 2019

Here Come the Elephants - Now Where is the Sun??

It’s green March for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, but there is nothing but gray clouds and white snow outside. And rain. Apparently the weather can’t make up its mind, which is a sure sign that spring is almost here. And since nothing is greening up outside yet, it seems a good time to play with our green fabric scraps indoors. Join me and the other RSC scrappy playmates with our green show and tell for the week over at Angela’s Scrappy Saturday

I like to start out my month by working with the selvages. These are my four 4-patch selvage blocks. I do sew them together into one big block, but as you can see, one is turned wrong. Actually, it was pieced wrong. Should I leave it wonky or fix it?? 


And then I did my row of green tumblers, alternating selvage tumblers with a solid piece of fabric in various green prints. Since green follows yellow in the rainbow, these two rows will actually go together in the actual little quilt.


And next I like to get the crackers out of the way, since they take 5” squares. Those are the biggest component parts for all my RSC blocks this year, so I do them before I really start cutting into the chunks for other things.  I had enough green to get 12 cracker blocks. They measure 7.75” unfinished.


And then it was time to knock out those two elephant donation quilts. They are both made from the 10” Happy Blocks I  sewed while on vacation last month. The first quilt, creatively named Elephants I (my imagination is as dull as the weather these days) was quilted with a loopy design. As in all these pictures, the wonkiness is from how I pin these quilts up on the design board. Maybe I should learn to photograph them on the floor.....


Three leftover blocks were sewn into the back. It was fun to put all these random chunks and strips of fabrics together to come up with some sort of  passable backing. Those two horizontal orangey strips are leftovers from the Saguaro Sunset quilt ombre fabric.


And here is Elephants II. The quilting is a simple stipple.


The backing on this also contains, in addition to the blah tan that I can’t wait to be rid of, three more elephant blocks. This completes Goal #5 on my Finish-Along list for the 1st quarter of this year. You can see my list HERE.  The two quilts together were also my March goal for OMG - One Monthly Goal (two monthly goals? LOL)  I’ll link up to that finish post when it goes live at the end of the month. (Edited to add: OK - it’s live now. HERE is the March finish link-up for One Monthly Goal).


The two elephant quilts will both be for donation. Wouldn’t it be great if they went to two siblings who both love elephants? I figure the colors and theme are gender neutral.  My stack of donation quilts is getting pretty big, so I’m glad that Hands2Help and the charity opportunities are just around the corner! 

13 comments:

  1. I love your selvage projects. They make me think I should be saving those. I would fix the turned bit in that block-- it would make my brain crazy! Love the elphants, too, and I'm also looking forward to getting some donation quilts moved out of here and actually donated. You're ahead of me, though, because mine aren't quilted yet! I'll get right on that. . .:)

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  2. Bravo as usual!
    The Elephant quilts are great!

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  3. Love the 2 Elephant quilts. They will be well loved. What a lot of Green RSC blocks you made!

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  4. I love those cracker blocks! I think they will be fun in every color, turned this way and that. The elephant quilts are also cute and fun - love that fabric! I saw your bird quilt in snippets on Diane Knott's instagram feed. Looks like it turned out beautifully!

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  5. Lots of good stuff happening in your sewing room! I need to get out my green scraps, but I'm prepping for another retreat, so it may not happen until I return home. I think I've chosen a quilt pattern for a small charity quilt. Keep on stitching!!

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  6. RSC and OMG success for the first bit of GREEN month!!! Keep up the good work.

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  7. Elephants 1 and 2 look great! And your greens are feeling very springy, bright and sunny. Normally I'm not a stitch ripper for slightly off blocks, but unless you commit to making more vertical selvage blocks, that one is probably going to stick out quite a bit in the final quilt. Of course, fixing it in a few months won't be any harder than fixing it now, so there's no rush :)

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  8. Don't fix the wonky selvedge block unless it REALLY bugs you. I think it looks fine/adds interest! Love seeing the Cracker blocks made with black & white background fabric - fun!!

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  9. I must be blind...I do not see anything wrong with the selvedge block. Or is it that I'm sew into organic sewing, it looks perfect to me?
    There are going to be two lucky children who receive your elephant quilts! you are so kind!!!

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  10. Maybe this is the year of the elephant!

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  11. I'm loving those Crackers. I made a different Cracker variation quilt (Pentland Crackers) with white background and keep it on one of the camper beds because it's so bright and summery looking. I keep thinking I need to make a quilt with b/w background because they always look so good.

    If that will be the only wonky selvage four patch in the quilt it will be very noticeable I think unless you like sore thumbs.

    congrats on the two Happy Elephants!

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  12. I'm glad to see you're back showing completed quilts AND blocks. I was afraid I was going to have to leave a comment about you slacking off.

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  13. Those elephant quilts are such fun - I'm sure they will go to happy home(s) and be well loved. Nice to see the lovely greens too - they're certainly a long way off in the great outdoors.

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