Wrapping up Dark Blue - Almost

June will wrap up on Thursday the 30th this month, which is also my son Shane’s birthday. OMG, he’ll be 43 - and he’s my middle child. Gee, he’s getting OLD! Hmmmm.... aging seems to run in the family, LOL.  

This month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge the colors are dark and bright blue. I still have a few things to wrap up, but I’ve got five days to do it, so it’ll be easy peasy. But I did get a lot - and I do mean a lot - of sewing done this week. We had several rainstorms this week (only one of any great amount). Rain means more sewing time! The drought continues, but at least we haven’t had to water the yard. And our scheduled dentist appointments needed to be rescheduled, so that gave me an extra morning to play as well. 

First up, I finished my pieced elephants. There are eight of them here; the other 4 were shown earlier in the month. The pattern is Stomping Ground by Wendy Shepard, and the blocks finish at 10” each.

As planned, this was my Week of the Elephant, so all the blue and green elephants got pieced into two flimsies.

Blue and Green Elephants, 1 of 2

Once again, my iMac is having fits and hiding some pictures (and their edits) in random locations. I’m ready to throw it through a window. I’m going to load the photos from my phone to the iPad and continue from here. Grrrrr…

Blue and Green Elephants, 2 of 2

Can I say again how much I love this border fabric? I included one elephant made out of it in each quilt. And then I decided it would be the backing too, so I had to order more. With the quick service (and great prices) from Quilted Twins, it arrived yesterday.  

I’ll get these two little donation elephant quilts basted and quilted over the weekend and share them, finished, next Saturday. 

I got a lot of dark and bright blue things sewn up this week too. Fourteen bow ties at 4.5”

A dark blue row of scrappy crumbs and plain-cut tumblers (alternating). 

Several rows are now complete. I’ve added a colored scrap marker in the above picture to show you what’s left to sew as those colors are called. The sides will be trimmed straight after assembly.

I also used my dark and bright blue crumbs to make 18, 6.5” crumb blocks and then assembled them into three 12x18” placemats to join my collection. They’re getting a lot of use! I’m linking up to the Table Scraps June Linky party at The Joyful Quilter.

Next week I’ll show my dark blue bear paw blocks, which are all cut out and ready to be sewn.

I basted several quilts this week (3 or 4, can’t remember) and got two of those quilted up and finished. The first one - and I should’ve photographed it on the floor for a more flattering picture - is this scrappy half-square triangle donation quilt.

I quilted the dark blue with straight lines about a half-inch away from the seamlines in a dark blue thread that doesn’t show up. But you can see the same quilting on the brighter triangles.  There is also horizontal quilting in the ditch. 

Every last square inch of the donated scrap fabrics were used to enlarge the back with a decorative center. This quilt finished at 42x54”, a good youth size.

My second quilt finish was (my favorite), the seaside checkerboard quilt.

Quilted with my usual loops, it measures 42x48”. The backing was a delightful green geometric batik. Both of these quilts will go to Quilts for Kids.

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Last Saturday was my granddaughter Lauren’s high school graduation party for her family and friends. Here she is with the graduation quilt I finished last fall for her.

If you thought you remembered Lauren as a natural blonde, you’d be correct. She dyed her hair brown a couple months ago. Teenagers! I miss her beautiful golden locks. 

Someone also snapped a picture of some of us at the party. Left to Right: DIL Kim and son Ryan (Lauren’s parents), me (grandma), Celine and Graham (parents of Lauren’s boyfriend Graham Jr) and Bruce (grandpa). 

And finally, in a stunning role reversal this month, I caught Darla being a mischievous imp

And Alfie (make that Sir Alfalfa) cultivating a distinguished demeanor.

What is this world coming to? (wink)