Jungle Elephant Quilt DONE!

Well good grief, Charlie Brown!  Not only did I think I would NEVER get this quilt pieced and on the frame, I was beginning to think I would NEVER get it quilted and bound - WHEW!  Finally, I can FINALLY say I finished this Big Boy:

I know I'm including ALOT of photo downloading time, but I thought you might enjoy the close-ups of quilting and application techniques, since the long-shot photos don't due the fabrics and threads justice - they are just gorgeous!  (Complete info on threads, etc., on another earlier post HERE - and I caution you, that post is even heavier w/photos.)

Turned out pretty good if I say so myself ;-)  I LOVED working on this quilt, too - it was an evolutionary-type quilt as it didn't start out with any kind of pattern, just some elephant embroidery blocks, some vibrant colored hand-dyed batik fabrics and some, thank goodness, much needed inspiration!  

I had a ball quilting it, primarily with my favorite type of quilting, McTavishing and again, I think it gave this quilt additional movement and character that enhanced the batiks and the embroidery quite nicely.

Binding this dude was a little challenging:

Thank heaven for little card table...

Blind hemming the binding w/clear monopoly

The clear/invisible monopoly thread is such a life-saver w/multiple fabric colored binding, as with this quilt, and is virtually undetectable when applied in this fashion.  I cannot however, take the credit for this amazing technique.  

As with many, if not most of my quilting/sewing ideas, this one has been permanently 'borrowed' from professional quilt artist, Leah Day:

Part I

Part II

These videos are a little long, but if you are in need of learning how to apply quilt binding completely by machine, then these are for you and well worth your time.  I use this technique on ALL my gift/charitable projects because it's FAST and stands up to repeated laundering - a Win/Win in my book.  I've used all kinds of threads to apply, but my favorites are clear/invisible monopoly and matching embroidery/quilting threads from my quilt.  

When I use clear monopoly and/or embroidery thread, I follow it up w/pre-wound polyester bobbins (the same kind I use in my embroidery machine will fit in the machine I apply my bindings with, both are Vikings, so I have these bobbins in bulk and on hand most of the time, and another time-saver for me ;-)

Alrighty then, just need the quilt label finished up and I'm golden.  But for now, I'm off for some shut-eye so I can get rested up and try to get caught up with Bonnine Hunter's annual Mystery quilt, Easy Street, 'cause the Monday Morning 'linky' is in a few short hours!

Later,

~Deb

PS...

For the complete Jungle Elephant story, you can go to the original post w/updates here: 

Jungle Elephant UFO catch-up w/Updates