Charity Quilt Finish - An Elephant March

 

This cute little baby quilt made it's way yesterday to Debbie, our local Chapter Coordinator for Project Linus. It was a pleasure meeting her, and I was surprised she was not yet aware of the quilt drive, 100 Quilts for Kids, hosted by Katie over at Swim, Bike, Quilt. Hopefully she will spread the word to quilter's who have already donated quilts and may not be aware of the fabulous giveaways they may be eligible for, just by linking their quilts for entry by the end of the month.

I was a bit humbled when I took a look at all the gorgeous quilts posted at the 100 Quilts for Kids Flickr Group! There are so many outstanding quilts posted by some very generous quilters!

This was a pretty quick quilt, and I am pleased with the finish. This was the second time I machine stitched the binding, and it went pretty well! I used 2.5" strip and stitched at 3/8" to the backside. When I flipped and the front down it was smooth sailing. Very little stitching was visible on the back when I finished, I pictured the worst of it in the 2nd photo here:

I still really prefer a hand finished binding, but as I get better with this technique, I can see great use for it, especially for baby quilts.
The backing is plain by today's standards, but I made a unique label that can be left as is, or someone may choose to write a name or message on it.

I had some problem with thread breakage when blanket stitching this down, switched to a 65 needle and muscled on, trying not to let the perfectionist in me talk negatively, and hoped no one would really notice. Then I signed it with a red Staedtler permanent ink pen and heat set it. I have used this pen once before, on a Christmas quilt, but for some reason it did get just a bit blurry when I washed and dried the finished quilt. Maybe if I had used a hotter iron, or longer press, it may have taken better, but I no longer recommend this pen(!).

Linking up with other Friday finishes with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? , and with Missy Mac Creations for TGIFF!