A Pair of Quilts and Wall Hangings

I don't really have a clever title, but this project was definitely a labor of love.  My fantastic friend Gina decided to inform her friends that she was pregnant with TWINS after she was four months along.  I was so happy for her.  I probed her for name ideas and her nursery theme.  She brushed me off the first few times, and finally she told me elephants.  I thought that was a sweet idea!  BUT Gina had specifications for her elephants.  They had to have trunks turned up because up trunks are good luck. 

Finished wall hanging and in process blanket

I searched the interwebs for images that were appealing.  I saw alot of cute stuff, but most of it was for girlie-bobs.  I didn't feel confident in my drawing skills.  I ask an artist friend of mine to do a line drawing, but alas, I didn't get it in time and if I was going to complete TWO wall hangings and TWO baby quilts, I had to get down to business.  

I found a piece of clip art that I liked and I used it as a reference to draw an elephant.  I cut out my paper drawing and outlined it on a piece of cardboard - like cereal boxes are made of.  I cut out my cardboard elephant; and traced it on to the interfacing that I ironed on to my grey fabric.  I traced my second elephant facing the opposite direction.  I used two different decorative stitches to applique the elephant on the background fabric.  I used spray baste to adhere the quilt sandwich and used simple outline and straight line quilting using my walking foot.  I am not at all skilled at quilting, but I have less anxiety when I use a walking foot.  I then made my own binding and machine bound each of the wall hangings using a zig zag stitch.  I used some scrap fabric to make two corner rod pockets for hanging.

Zach and Jeff on their special blankets

I made simple quilts for the babies because I wanted them to be sturdy for lots of loving and would hold up to washing.  I used some cute elephant print fabric with up trunks and decided to use the same grey from the elephants for the back.  I decided to inset a piece of grey fabric on the front and then use a strip of elephant print on the back.  I also found some flannel that had grey polka dots and used my same elephant template to make elephant appliques, facing different directions.  I used interfacing to stabilize the flannel.  

Twin Tummy Time