January Table Scraps Challenge and RSC

It's the last Saturday of the month, which means it is time to link up my progress on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. One project for this year was started in 2022 but abandoned after four months. I'm hoping to finish it up in 2023. Here are my Rail Fence blocks in blues. Each block will finish at 3".

Along with my continuing participation in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, this year I decided to join in with the  2023 Table Scraps Challenge at The Joyful Quilter. Each month we will use the RSC color of the month, and the Table Scraps Challenge will assign some letters of the alphabet for inspiration. Here's the description from The Joyful Quilter:

"You are encouraged to use each month's letters in whatever form they lead. Your interpretation of what to do with them is NOT limited to using the actual letter in your project!  Although, you are welcome to do that (by using them in spelling out a word or some such), you may also relate the letters to a color, quilting technique or project type.  Interpreting an item that begins with one of the letters is appropriate for a challenge entry, as well.  (Example A = Apple)"

Our assigned letters for January are C, R and J. The RSC color for the month is bright and dark blue. My plan was to come up with color names starting with C, R or J to feature in my projects. That proved to be quite easy in some cases and almost impossible in the other. The other part of the plan was to focus on making placemats.

Here are some of the names of blue colors that I found for those letters:

C: cobalt, copen, cornflower, cadet, cerulean, carolina, celestial

R: robin's egg, royal, regatta, RISD blue, riviera 

J: blue Jay, Jordy blue

There were a few colors I'd never heard of before, like RISD blue. Apparently, the Rhode Island School of Design recently changed their colors/logo to this very bright, almost electric blue. Unfortunately, I didn't have any fabric in that color.

Carolina blue (for the University of North Carolina) was familiar to me.

I even had some fabric that is a pretty good match for Carolina blue. I combined it with some brown prints for this placemat. You might notice how the swirly print on the blue fabric inspired the quilting in the corners of the placemat.

Early in the month, I made a couple of placemats with leftover strips and pieces from an Irish Chain quilt made many years ago. One of the fabrics features royal blue.

My favorite blue placemat for the month is this very simple string mat. I made this using a sew-and-flip technique onto the batting and backing, which meant no quilting needed at the end. I tried to include as many blues from my list as possible.

I love the fabric on the back of this one too.

Be sure to check out all of the wonderful scrappy projects at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge every Saturday, the ABC Table Scraps Challenge at The Joyful Quilter, and at Oh Scrap! over at Quilting is more fun than Housework on Sunday.

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA