chain mail

 if that post title makes you cringe - yeah, me, too. but it was just too obvious a title for these little chains of envelope blocks. so even though i have never liked chain mail, i do like these liberated envelope blocks, which were the last "liberated" block i worked up from an ::angled:: class tutorial to donate for charity quilts. rachel said we could send chains of 1 to 5 envelopes, as many as we wanted. once i cut out hsts, i had to use both of them, and then i also wanted variety in the way the envelopes were constructed. so i just kept going until i made myself stop.

for some reason, these were the hardest blocks for me of the 3 styles i tried. not only did i have to unpick and resew a few times, i ended up with three reject blocks (that now need a home or an unpick). two of them have points that were cut off by the seam allowance and one of them i turned the wrong way so the darkest color was not the "flap" of the envelope, which rachel had requested. i think the ones that cut off the point were because i wasn't using a true hst on the right side (green dots). they looked like hsts but i didn't check them to make sure, so they didn't trim up right.

but despite these rejects and a few other unpicking moments, i did like the way they turned out. especially with the light blue background. i just might need to use up scraps for a quilt in this style for myself someday.

now the envelopes and other blocks are all in the mail.
i can't wait to see them worked into actual collaborative quilts!