Elephant Parade Resumes

Last year, or at least it feels like it, in 2015, I made some Elephant Parade blocks. Then other quilts pushed to the front of the line. So when Joan and Carol announced that the theme for the August blog hop was It's a Jungle, I was eager to join so that I can make more progress on my Elephant Parade quilt. Hopefully if you squint and bend the rules,  you might be able to fit it into a jungle theme. 

It is a fun quilt and I really would like to turn this into a finished quilt.

 

Welcome to my Blog Hop post, and let me show you my Elephant Parade quilt. When last we left this quilt, in 2015 (yikes!) it was a bunch of stray blocks. I had made too many and asked my blog friends which one I should eliminate or put in the back, and they said I should fit them all in. 

 So I am leaving them all in the front of the quilt. They will just have to squeeze in somehow. The blocks are various sizes so I do have to add coping strips to make them fit properly in a quilt.

Because of all the other projects I am working on, mostly because I was trying to finish my June and July blog hop quilts, I got behind on this one too. The June quilt is finished if you want to scroll back. It's called Beach Picnic.

The July quilt is quilted and just needs to be bound. It's called Tropical Fish. I had to drop it so I could make progress on the Elephant Parade quilt. 

 

Because of my tardiness, my hope for this August quilt was that I could at least get one or two rows sewn together. I needed to do measuring and fudging to put them together and I didn't want to rush it and make frustrating mistakes. I am focusing on the height of the blocks and making sure they will fit into a row.  Later I will worry about the width. I will just add sashing to the outside to make them fit, though I may make a sashing/coping strip wider if I would prefer it that way when I get to that point.

 

I wound up getting into a good rhythm, and managed to complete three and a half rows.  I am happy with the progress, and am stopping only so I can get the blog post out. 

Hopefully like the June and July quilts I can keep working on them until I get them finished. As usual, since I am taking the photos at near midnight, the lighting is bad, which will make the reveal glamour shots look that much better.

Thank you for providing the motivation for me to make progress on this quilt, and be sure to check out the other participants in the blog hop. They are listed in my previous post.

Linked with:

Wednesday Wait Loss

It's a Jungle Blog Hop

It's time again for the monthly blog hop.

 

Here is the schedule of the participants for the August blog hop: 

You might notice that I am posting on Monday so come right back to see my post.

Monday August 19

MooseStashQuilting (our hostess)

Ms P Designs USA

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Quilting Between the Rails

High Road Quilter (that's me!)

Tuesday August 20

Patchouli Moon Studio

Karrins Crazy World

Quilting Gail

Quilted Delights 

Wednesday August 21

A Quiltery

Quilted Snail

Selina Quilts

Hazel’s Daughter

Thursday August 22

Just Let Me Quilt

Scrapdash

BeaQuilter

That Fabric Feeling

Franklin Park Conservatory

 We went to the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus, Ohio recently, and rather than letting the photos sit in storage, I decided to share some of them with you. It was a really hot day, but it was enjoyable because everything was so incredibly beautiful.

Inside, of course, there are beautiful plants with beautiful foliage. There are different climates in different rooms.

 

 

There is a display of lots of wonderful bonsai trees. 

 

 

There is also artwork. The work of Dale Chihuly is featured, but there is plenty more if you look carefully.

There are more plants on the roof. I liked how the shirt on the lady echoed the color on the plants. There is another lady you can't see behind the plant. Both of them were making beautiful watercolor paintings of different scenes of the fountains below.

One of the featured exhibits outside is called Through the Vines: A Seasonal Journey. You can see the three arches on the right, but if you look farther ahead, you can see there are even more arches.

On the arches, there are wonderful creatures and plants. As you go through the arches, you see the time passing as they are seasonal.

As you can see, the sky was beautiful that day. The sun was bright but the day was really hot so we didn't linger very long.

Also outside is the The Paul Busse Garden Railway. It features railroad tracks with trains that are moving through lots of different scenes. Here is a blurb from their website about this exhibit.

Have a great week!