Penny for my thoughts: Elephant Quilt

I saw an elephant quilt hanging in my local Quilt Shop. The Old Country Store in Intercourse, PA, and knew I wanted to make it for my daughter for Christmas. Ann Bertorelli taught the class and it was great fun! Ann is an excellent teacher with all of the tips and tricks to make the class successful.

We used the Elephant pattern by Edyta Sitar. I wanted the quilt to have a modern look, so I chose fabrics to look like Ann's quilt. I took the class on a Wed and my LAQ had a deadline of Sat. morning to get it long-armed by Christmas. The race was on! My husband cut an elephant template out of plastic and helped trace it onto Heat and Bond lite.

I completed 5 elephants in class.

Working feverishly, I laid the blocks on the living room floor. Looking at the finished size, I decided it definitely needed to be bigger. Instead of 24 blocks, I needed 35 blocks.

Ta-dah ! I made it!

I took it to the long-armer with a little lee-way on her part. She did a fabulous pattern and design.

A flange binding always looks so easy on Youtube. When bringing the binding to the front and sewing it, the stitches were not straight and were unsightly. I took them out and decided to hand sew the flange.

It wasn't until I started on the binding that I found the teal elephant on the lower left is not sewn down. It's completely quilted, now what?? Whatever I do is going to be noticeable. A few options -1. hand sew it down so it won't be seen from the back. (a straight or buttonhole stitch) 2. Sew it with a buttonhole stitch on the machine.