elephant day

I've been eyeing that stack of fabrics for what seems like ever and finally made time to work on the elephants!

This morning I got up and worked on cutting, not knowing how far along I'd get, but planning today to be elephant day.  I had about 25% cut, but with 17 pieces per elephant, I had a lot of pieces still to go.

I sewed and sewed.  At first, the seams were short and it seemed like I was making quick progress.  But as the pieces became larger pieces, the seams became longer and progress seemed to slow.  Yet once I could start seeing the elephant take shape, my enthusiasm was renewed.

And now, though my attention span today is about 20 minutes, I have 20 elephants to show!  The whole baby quilt worth of them.

The pattern can be found here, at the Milk and Honey Quilts blog.  It's very well written and easy to follow.  Lots of diagrams - no whole paragraphs on how to sew a triangle either.

I'm so excited.  I have the blocks all done in just one day!  And that green print is my favorite.  I want to wallpaper my bedroom and paint my car to match!  (But I won't.)

So here they all are.  (Again, you can't get a photo without a cat at my house...)  And yes, I do realize that 8 of them are going the other direction.  With 17 pieces per elephant, that takes more than an accident to make happen.

Eventually, they'll be in rows alternating direction, colors mixed up and I'm still debating sashing and border options.

While I had the camera out, I thought I'd share a photo update on the April UFO project. 

I need four of these squares and 4 triangles that are a bit more than a quarter of the design before the end of the month.  I got a lot done yesterday while my mom was over using my longarm, but usually I don't have that much time to sit and work on it.  Slow and steady - I'll get it done eventually!

And in the mail yesterday, I got this...

Remember I sent a few star blocks in for the Just One Star project Moda was hosting?  Well, I never expected even a thank you, but a stack of 2.5" squares of a fantastic Christmas print, too?  How awesome is that?  The funny part is that the envelope came addressed to my husband and I...you see, I just stuck the blocks in an envelope and sent it off.  No note or anything, but I'd put a return address label on the envelope, so that's how they knew where to find me.  So the hubby comes into the house with the mail and snatches the envelope up (because his name is on there, too!) and opens it to find fabric.  Boy was he disappointed!  It makes me giggle, but I do feel bad for him - he thought he was going to find something fantastic and get to it before I did!

Time to go make some dinner.  I hope you've all had a productive weekend (quilty or otherwise).  We're waiting for the return of spring, so it was a good weekend to quilt for me.

Happy quilting,

Katie