This quilt top is #18 in my UPcycled Greens series.

This 2-rail Rail Fence pattern is about the simplest thing a person can make. No sashings. Not much piecing in the blocks (boy is that an understatement!)!

I’m determined to whittle these pieces of UP Greens down.

My Greens are so much less interesting than my blues were! I’m considering going ahead and making up some pieced backs from some of my larger pieces just to finish this series up. As of this writing, I have blocks made for 2 more quilt tops after this with a total of 5 MORE kind of ‘in the works’. I have plans for more, but the greens I have - a lot of them are very light, so unless I add something else with them that is dark, I have a hard time making an interesting top from them. But when I use something dark - that dark color tends to kind of take over the design and it looks less like a ‘green quilt’ than that other color.

Like this one.

I knew I needed another strong color to make the rail fence work.

I also knew I had a navy sheet I could work with. So I decided to go with it.

If you notice here, the greens definitely do not carry this quilt - the navy does.

But that’s how I planned it. I don’t have enough dark green to make a top like this using a solid dark green and not navy.

I have a few solid greens - but they are pretty light. The challenge is in using them.

I’m kind of forcing myself now to work on these tops - as I really want to finish these up and move on to other things but my boxes are not yet down to only 2. I’m at about 3 1/2. If I would take all my pieces, cut them into as big of squares as I can and make a couple of backings from those squares, however, I think I would go through them pretty fast. I’m not there yet - but feel like I’m get close to that point. I actually have maybe 10 more “planned” on EQ - just not sure I have the necessary variety for them unless I add to them by heading to a thrift store- which I don’t want to do!

LOL I’ve been so tempted - and I am not saying I wouldn’t ever do it. However, green is a rare color at the thrift shops - at least the darker greens are.

As to the border on this one - I had thought I would do a piano key border. Then, I considered it as I had finished up the top and changed my mind. I realized I had done several lately with piano key borders. So for two reasons I opted for this border using larger pieces - in random sizes. Why? 1. I’ve done several piano key borders lately - at least it feels that way - and 2. I wanted this border to fit with the theme of super easy and fast. A piano key border isn’t nearly as fast as this border was.

As you can imagine - this quilt is made up of a simple 2-rail - rail fence block which was based on 2.5” strips so they were 4.5” x 4.5” before I put them into the quilt - so the little block finished at 4”.

I used a navy rail and a greens rail which I cut 2.5”x4.5”.

Then the inner border was cut at 1.5” and a 2.5” navy border. That last border was 6.5” cut in random sizes.

This one feels so nice and cozy. Yes, the top does. The navy is super soft and these fabrics are really wonderful to work with. I’ve put the top aside now - in my “to be quilted” stack.

Speaking of “to be quilted” stacks.

This is the building we had to go to to turn in my documents. It was an 8:10 am appointment so we didn’t have to wait a long time to get in. We were finished by 9:30 am.

I’m sure some of you are wondering about the potential long arm. We turned in my documents about a week ago now for my renewal for my residency permit - and now we wait. They said that the decision should be ready on Jan. 31, 2022.

Yes.

3 months.

I’m not buying a long arm until I get a “yes” decision about the next residency permit which I hope will be for 3 years.

I’ll start working on my “long arm” room which needs to get cleaned out and remodeled. My plan/hope is about the end of December, I will try to start writing various places that sell long arms and try to find out all my options.

Back to the UP Greens series - here is where I stand so far. This is top #18.