I'd like to introduce the giraffe

I finished the giraffe quilt on Friday night.  Yes, a giraffe.  I think she is pretty cute.

Taking photos of quilts is kind of hard.  Maybe even worse than taking photos of windows.  I am just saying.

I made the applique the same way I did on the elephant - lots of Wonder Under.  On this quilt, I embroidered the mouth, though.  It is kind of hard to see in the photos though.  Trust me when I say that it adds to the charm.

The backing was made with a patchwork strip on purpose this time.  The orange gingham is 60 inches wide so I didn't need to add it.  But I really had to have it.  It is my favorite part.  I dig the back side so much that I think I may make a similar one with the strip on the front.  I also love how the stripes of free motion quilting make the fabriclook kind of like seersucker after I washed it.  Another happy accident in my mind.

I know many of you told me not to use different thread colors for the quilting.  I didn't listen.  There is a bit of orange thread pulling through to the back, but I am OK with it.  Because the gingham is orange, it is not so noticeable.  I think the key is having the top thread match the backing fabric here....if I couldn't do that, I think I would have just used the same thread on top and bottom.

I added a little house on hill road tag to the back corner of the binding.  Tomorrow I am going to fold this up nicely, wrap it lovingly and send it off to a new baby.  Then I am going to start planning my next quilt(s) and think about actually quilting the string x one.  Against my better judgement, I think I am going to tackle that one myself.