Supplies Needed for Elephant Panel

It’s time to talk materials needed to make the quilt panel.  The method used is raw edge applique and there are almost 100 pieces. It sounds intimidating but is more time consuming than difficult.  Breaking the elephant down into “component” parts and using Heat N Bond Iron on adhesive to attach the pieces to some stabilizer breaks the job down into very easy to handle sections.

Back to supplies for the elephant panel only:

• 2 to 5 yards of Heat N Bond Lite Iron on adhesive (sewable). Amount needed depends on how efficiently you apply it.  I went crazy and applied it to lots of fabric pieces so I had a wide selection of fabric choices. You can get it at Jo-anne Fabric, Walmart and just about anywhere sewing supplies are sold.
• Thread for zig-zag, satin stitch and/or decorative stitches. I used a Sulky Gold (ordered at Amazon.com)
• 2 yards of Fabric stabilizer (non-adhesive).   This is the foundation that you adhere the fabric pieces too (which have Heat N Bond on the backside).  I found a lighter weight works best if you want your quilt to remain soft and drape well. If you plan to hang your quilt like a piece of art, a heavier stabilizer can be used.. 
• 2-3 fabric glue sticks
• About 1 1/2 yards of background fabric for Elephant Panel (normally white)(44” wide)
• Various scraps for the elephant parts. I didn’t use anything bigger than a fat quarter but I have a large fabric stash and had lots of fabric in many sizes to use.



Stablizer

Heat N Bond

 

I'll cover the instructions and supplies needed to turn the elephant panel into a quilt similar to the one in this photo after the center elephant panel is done.

 

How it began

We’ve all been there – browsing quilting posts on Facebook or the web and suddenly we see a quilt that we love and want to make, but frustratingly there isn't a pattern or instructions!  Sometimes we can recreate the pattern based on our experience and sometimes the quilt falls into the “too hard to do” category and ends up on our Pinterest page along with the dozens of other quilts we’ll never make.

Recently I was browsing the posts at my favorite Facebook quilt group “Quilt Along with Pat Sloan” when I ran across a post by Jeanette Silvey that included this picture of an elephant quilt and asking if anyone knew where she could find the pattern.  Group members suggested several possibilities, but none were the exact same elephant.  Finally Jeanette traced a line drawing of the elephant and used an online site to blow it up to poster size.  

My in-laws lived in India for several years when my father-in-law worked for a U.N. agency.  Their home has several elephant themed decorations. I really wanted to make this quilt for my mother in law and Jeanette’s plan sounded doable to me.

The first thing I did was clean up the line drawing a little so I had a crisp black and white image for blowing up.  Once the image was ready, I went to BlockPosters.com to turn the image into a multi-page poster.   Posters up to 5 by 5 pages are free and you download your poster as a PDF file.  I choose a 4x4 poster which produced 16 pages that measure 34 inches wide and 47 inches high once taped together, which I will later trim down to 34 inches by 40 inches.  

You have to set a few options before you print your poster. This is what I choose:

Here is the picture you need to upload at BlockPosters.com to make your poster.  Right Click on the picture and save it to your computer.

When you print the poster on your home printer, you need to adjust the printer settings to borderless printing (usually found under Properties) and print actual size.  My system for making the quilt requires that you print and tape together two copies of the poster.

I lightly color one of the posters using colored pencils (or crayons) using about 8-10 colors. It helped me to choose my fabric and not have too much of one color  in any area. This step is definitely optional but I'm glad I took the time.