A Herd of Elephants

I used to tell my kids when they clomped through the house that they sounded like a herd of elephants. And when the kitties thunder through the house playing (often at 3 a.m.), we say they sound like a herd of elephants. I’ve actually seen a herd of elephants in the wild (Kenya, 2018) and they sound nothing like the kids or the cats. But I’d never SEWN a herd of elephants until this week.

In nature, elephants are usually limited in color. But in my sewing world, you’ll be seeing a rainbow variety throughout the next year. I’m hooked on making these wonderful beasts! This month, I’m working through my neutral scraps (mostly dark neutrals) for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. So the result is a total of eight new ellies to add to the two green ones from last month. Come join me, the elephants, and lots of other creative scrappers over at Angela’s blog for Scrappy Saturday!

First I made two gray elephants. I tried to use an ivory fabric for their tusks (because gray would be redundant), but it didn’t show up too well. That’s OK; they’ll be safe from poachers, LOL! Note their paisley ears; these must be Asian elephants. 

Next came four brown elephants with curly-print ears. I love this color combo, so I made four. I even managed to keep the subtle stripes aligned vertically! Their gray tusks show up very nicely. I’ll be using gray on all the rest of the elephants I sew.

And then because I have no specific plan yet except to make lots and lots of elephants so that I can sew several quilts-worth of them, I made two more. These are obviously from yet another herd, as you can tell by their square-ish circle print ears. The one on the right has a wonky front leg - I’ll need to do some minor surgery to fix that. 

The pattern for these elephants is Stomping Ground by Wendy Sheppard. 

As was my goal, I did manage to baste, quilt and finish up the three kids quilts for Quilts for Kids this week. The first one was the Cornered Strings quilt that finished at 40x50”. 

These are 10” blocks, and are a free pattern from The Long Thread blog, here. I’ve seen a couple other of the RSC ladies making them too. I plan to make more string quilts from this pattern, but will probably set them 5 across by 6 down for a 50x60” quilt.  This was really fun and I can see myself playing for a couple weeks or more with them this winter. 

I also made a real dent in my brown scraps with the following two finishes. First is the 16-patch quilt using the bazillion brown chevron scraps that I was given from Quilts for Kids.  First is Chocolate Checkerboard, finishing at 40.5”x48.5”.  I laid this (and the next) quilt out on the grass, which is still green (!), and it is really lumpy. The grass, not the quilt. The color is off in this picture - there is no pink in this quilt.

The final quilt, finishing at 40x51” is another QFK donation quilt using strips and a leftover block from my two Masala Box quilts. 

The backing for both this quilt and Chocolate Checkerboard was this brown toile print that I’m happy to finally have found a use for. 

In the next week I’ll be putting together a green and brown string quilt. And that reminds me that I forgot to show you the 27 brown string blocks I made (no picture). No worries - you’ll see the quilt next week. I’m also cutting out and beginning to sew more Zipper blocks because my daughter Megan claimed my Zipper quilt. And then there are two little Christmas kitty quilts and my own Christmas quilt - blocks cut out in 2020 - to begin sewing. Never a lack of projects, UFOs or scraps around here!!

My daughter Megan flew home to Washington State on Monday evening after visiting with the family here in Utah for five days. That very night, her 16-year-old cat Lola (who is two years older than her other cat Iggy) became very ill. She vomited and was having trouble breathing. Long story short, Megan and Ted had to have Lola put to sleep. Heart failure. Meg is devastated. It’s been an awful week for her between the unexpected family drama with her dad, and then Lola dying. All this while she is going to school and working 3/4 time. 

Bruce and I are planning on a quiet Thanksgiving dinner at home, having turned down a couple invitations. I plan to - what else? - sew and start a new book and fix our favorite Thanksgiving turkey casserole from Melody at Fibermania blog (now discontinued).  We’ll also have cranberry-orange relish, homegrown green beans and pumpkin pie.  What are you planning? Will you be doing any Black Friday shopping this year? However you spend your week and your Thanksgiving, I hope it’s happy and healthy.