Aurifil’s Endangered Species Challenge

This month’s challenge is about an amazing thread program Aurifil has been doing this past year. The focus of the program is highlighting endangered animals by challenging sewists to paper piece an endangered animal and using 3 coordinating threads to quilt the mini quilt. Great way to highlight right?

I was challenged to use the tread related to the Pink Land Iguana.

Information from the Galapagos Conservation Trust stated “One of Galapagos’ most recently described species is also one of its genetically oldest. Pink iguanas are not just a different colour from other land iguanas; they are a completely separate species. There are only around 200 left, and they are confined to the slopes of Wolf Volcano on Isabela, making them one of the most vulnerable species in Galapagos, as the volcano is still active.”

I started to get curious… Pink animals? Like, how many can there be?? (I could only think of flamingos off the top of my head.) If there are some pink animals, are they endangered as well? I started my Google searching… and what I found was there are A LOT of pink animals out there! Sadly many are endangered or on the brink of extinction.

I started to look around at the number of extinctions that happen every year and some studies, cited by the World Wildlife Fund, indicate that between .01 and .1 percent of all species go extinct yearly, which doesn’t seem like many–only if there are 2,000,000 different species worldwide (scientist don’t actually know the numbers of species we have as we keep discovering new ones) that means between 200 and 2000 animal species go extinct annually. Which, again, doesn’t seem like many unless you consider extinct means GONE FOREVER. The other thing to consider is that, unlike the past, we–PEOPLE–are responsible for the mass extinction occurring now.

I decided that since Aurifil is highlighting the Pink Land Iguana to bring up a level of awareness that I would highlight another pink animal. I found a page on Treehugger.com that highlighted 14 different pink animals that are endangered. From the birds to bugs to sea animals it took my breath away the first time I read the article… I found it to be so sad! However, it also inspired me to focus on another interesting animal–the pink Amazon dolphin!

The problem with making a block with the Pink Amazon dolphin is there were no quilt blocks I could find–so what to do? Appliqué? Paper piecing? Traditional piecing? Finding a pattern was hard so I decided to make my own… easier said then done–I pulled some paper piecing patterns and tried to elongate the nose and “square up” the body. Nothing looked right or represented the shape of the Amazon dolphin. Then along came a pattern… like a tiny miracle. Elizabeth Hartman came out with Rainbow Rainforest and one of the blocks, in this traditionally pieced pattern, was an AMAZON DOLPHIN!

It was time to get busy! My Bernina was set up with Schmetz needles and Aurifil thread:

My trusty pattern guides me as I piece my block together.

The prep is really easy in this pattern as it works through each fabric needed and size to cut and teaches you to label each for ease of construction.