DIY Project: Elephant Panel Quilt

I love making these quilted blankets, because they are so quick and easy to make, and you still get that warm, crinkly quilt-feeling when you pull it out of the dryer, without spending weeks piecing the quilt top. They make for great gifts as well. I started this little elephant blanket yesterday, and finished it today, spending a few hours each day on it. 

I love, love, LOVE this gorgeous print! I love the whimsical elephants with their coral and white umbrellas, and the background is a beautiful textured gray! It came in a 2 yard panel, and I kept it intact for this quick little quilted blanket. 

I backed it with a solid light aqua, and to tie in the print, I added a coral and white umbrella appliqué. This was the first time I've done an appliqué, and I found it SO much harder than I had anticipated! I used a photo of the elephant print on my phone as my guide while I free-handed the umbrella design (and that was the easy part). I probably should have scanned it in and enlarged it properly, and it would have been a prefect magnified copy. It's similar enough though, I think. 

Quilt back, with appliqué

 I didn't pin the appliqué before I attached it, nor did I use a stabilizer. I just placed it on the backing fabric, ironed both layers, and then stitched quickly around the edge using a wide zigzag stitch. I followed that up with a tight zig zag all around the edges, and finally I removed the original wide stitch that held the design in place for the second step.

Appliqué close up, turned up side down

For the quilting, I had planned to do a simple diagonal line, but the curve snuck in right from the beginning, and I ended up with this rounded design, which I kind of love.

Quilting lines

I made the binding myself, using this coral-dot-on-white fabric that perfectly matches the coral shade on the elephant print. I had wanted to do a double binding, like this one, using the aqua backing fabric below the dotted binding, but I only had 2 yards of the backing fabric, and after the quilting was done, there wasn't enough aqua overhang on the backside to fold over the raw edge. Bummer, because I think it would have looked fantastic having the aqua peek out underneath the coral dots! Maybe next time...

Label and binding

 All things considered, I'm pretty pretty happy with this soft little quilt-blanket. I kind of wish it was bigger...

 

from my Instagram