elephant parade quilt :: complete

Here is the completed Elephant Parade Quilt.  I decided to call it a quilt because I spent a lot of time quilting it.  I originally thought that I would quilt in large circles to take up a lot of space but that is much easier said.  Since this was my first free motion quilting experience, I found it more natural to quilt in small to tiny circles.

I loved the free motion! It took a few circles to get the hang of it, and the shape of the larger circles was more difficult to control.  I'm sure it would have turned out more uniform if I wouldn't have had to stop to sleep on three separate nights.  But I think the best part about this circular, or pebble, design is that it doesn't have to be perfect.  I traced each circle twice and I actually think it looks better when the circles don't match up.  It gives the quilt a more improvised look. 

I ended up using four different thread colors on this quilt: light pink, medium purple, light purple, and apple green.  I didn't mean for that to happen, but I kept running out of thread.  I once ran to the store for more purple and picked up the wrong shade (I'm really not surprised).  I was too tired to return it, so I just went with it.

This is what the back looks like.  Because of the design, I can't really tell that the thread is four different colors.

In anticipation of binding the quilt using the backing fabric, I left about an inch of extra backing fabric around the edges (I did have to trim a little before binding).  I then turned under the raw edges until I met the top fabric (about half an inch) and pulled that edge onto the top and machine stitched the binding to the quilt.  None of my layers shifted much so this was a fast and effective way to bind.  The only thing I would recommend when using this binding method is to use a continuous quilting method.  I started and stopped for each new row and you can see these points on the back.

Even though I didn't piece any part of this quilt top, I still really like it.  The top fabric design has quite a bit to look at and the quilting adds extra detail and brings attention to the design elements.  So I think this makes a great quilt even though I feel like I cheated by using complete pieces for the front and back.

The completed quilt measures 35 x 39.5 inches after washing.

This quilt will be donated as part of Project Night Night to a local homeless shelter.  This is part of my 2010 First Quarter Donation Project.