Oh. THAT Annelie...: 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...