the elephant in the room... a machine quilting commission

An elephant in the room, at least in textiles... a bright and beautiful elephant in fact.

This quilt was made by my quilt buddy Amy G. She commissioned me to machine quilt it for her and I had great fun with this one. The elephant and flowers are mostly quilted the usual stipling technique. However, this beautiful teal fabric background was quilted using an 'all over' continuous line adapted from a Leah Day design called confused spiral.

I loved this quilting design for 3 reasons: first, it reminded me of a slightly exotic pattern which seemed to fit (considering where elephants come from); second, I was able to quilt this edge to edge pattern without turning the quilt that much (since I quilt on a regular machine - not a long arm - not having to turn the whole quilt every 30 seconds is a huge benefit); and third the pattern covered the whole background in nearly one line (meaning I didn't have to start and stop continuously and bury threads).

I quilted the entire background using a matching Aurifil thread - it was a perfect match. The elephant is quilted using two different variegated threads - both Aurifil.

The photo above show the quilt before quilting.

Lovin' the way it turned out!

Linking up with
Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays
Lizzy Lenard's Free Motion Mavericks