A Sigh of Relief...

I have to thank you readers and commenters out there from this post about the torment that I was giving myself about my elephant quilt.  All the encouragement made such a difference and let me give myself a bit of a break.  The kind words combined with a little time out with a fun project left me ready to emerge from "the valley of despair" (thanks for the brilliant title and the laugh Rebecca!) and finish the last portion of quilting. 

One of the worst offenders...

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be...although I did do a teeny bit of tucking here and there to minimize (I hope) the rippling.  There was a point in time where this Seinfeld bit was continually running through my mind:

But I battled the horror and got through it.  After a single trip through the washer and dryer, the crinkling actually masked most of the badness!  Yay for crinkly quilts!

The fabric that I chose for the binding was a cute Michael Miller print - as if there weren't enough elephants already!

I'm still more in love with the back than the front, and if I had it to do all over, I'd still make practically an entirely different quilt, but it is what it is!  Some people include a misplaced block in their quilts as a "humility block"...maybe instead of calling it Elephant Parade, I should call it Humility Parade! 

So ends the first official finish of 2013...it can only get better from here!  Shockingly, none of our friends have had any babies recently and none seem to be on the horizon, so I think I might try to sell this one on Etsy and just see what happens.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Linking up:

  Crazy Mom Quilts - Finish It Up Friday