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Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Elephant fun.

I am super stoked about this post!! I have been dabbling in paper piecing,Small projects here and there. So after I finished the Panda pillow, I asked my son...did he think his girlfriend would like one too for her birthday, which was on Friday. He said yes, then he said you know what would be better than a Panda...and elephant. His girlfriend likes elephants. I started the search, I knew there were patterns out there, but were they large enough for a pillow?
 Once I found about 5 patterns, I let him choose. He picked this elephant pattern by Juliet over at The Tartankiwi.  We printed the pattern and it had 18 pages! Okay....I got just a little nervous, but did not show this to my Son. I put my big girl quilter panties on and went to work!  I had my husband help me cut it out to keep me in the proper order...another set of eyes never hurt.
I just love the fabric for his ears.
I worked on it all weekend and surprisingly things were going way too easy! By Sunday I had this all put together and looking pretty good, just a few minor little fixes, which are not that minor when paper piecing a pattern. 
Look at his cute little tail!!
 I could not be happier or prouder that I finished this not so small pillow ( 24 x 24 inches). It does have another zipper closer in the back side and I used a  bright batik for the back fabric. 
 So those that do paper piece...how do you keep your fabrics and pattern in order. There are some tiny pieces that are next to impossible of labeling. Do you color them? Then use a colored code key to keep things in order? I used a pencil and wrote BG for the background  back leg for the back leg, ect,  but on the tiny pieces it did not work well. So any tips would be appreciated! 

Thanks for stopping by, until I see you again, wishing you Quilty Hugs~ Heide 

Links-
Sew fresh quilts- Lets be social
Finish up Fridays- Crazy mom Quilts.

11 comments:

  1. Lovely, nice fabric choices, especially for those ears. Your sons girlfriend will love it.

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  2. This is wonderful Heide! I've only recently been seeing Juliet's patterns and they always impress me. You did a perfect job with your elephant and your son's girlfriend is going to flip!

    There are two things I like to do whenever possible in paper piecing. The first is that I colorcode a pattern before starting, because it is too difficult for me to keep things straight otherwise. The other thing I like to do is print the pattern out with it's mirror image lined up exactly on the back, so you can see the lines without holding them up to a light. Hope that helps some.

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  3. I've never paper pieced....but love your elephants!!

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  4. That is really terrific! The elephant ears are the bee's knees. :)

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  5. I absolutely adore this! Elephants are my moms favorite animal and Ive always wanted to make a quilt for her.

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  6. Great finish. I love the fabrics you used for the whole pillow, but especially for the ears. It work out perfect. I have sometimes coded my fabric and put a code on the main fabric and then on the paper pattern too.

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  7. This is really cool! I'll bet the girlfriend loved it!!

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  8. It's beautiful! In what little paper piecing I've done, I color in the pattern to reflect the proper fabric. I also write arrows in to tell myself how smaller sections go together, as the first time I paper pieced, that really confused me.

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  9. Oh, this elephant pillow is beautiful!! You should be proud of this work! That fabric was the perfect choice for those ears!!

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  10. Very stunning elephant - very neatly done. Kudos to you!!!

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