It's magic!

Hello all, and greetings from my very soggy home! Seriously, it will not stop raining.  As you'll see in the following pictures, there are puddles everywhere, and the grass feels like a sponge.  The sump pump is running quite a lot.  The sad part is that we're still down several inches from where we should be because the last couple of years we were in drought.  Some of the pictures today are darkish because I had to dance between the raindrops to get them, so sorry about that!

Today I am showing off the completely finished Mutant Elephants quilt, complete with a really snappy machine-finished binding!

Well, at least you can really see the quilting! I was going to quilt this myself, but I chickened out.  Just too big, and with limited time in my life, it was better to send it to the longarmer.  I know the turtle and the frog are a little wide-eyed, but I like them.  Plus, those birds are flying, because I forgot to give them legs.  Next time I'll piece some legs in, but for now, they're flying.

I took this lovely little quilt to the park and tried to get some good pictures, but it was really wet.  See the puddles?

Who's going to lay their quilt on that?  Not me!

For this quilt, I did the machine binding again using the tutorial for Susie's Magic Binding, found HERE.  It really is magic! I think it looks fantastic. Look how it turns out:

This binding took me about an hour and 45 minutes, with several breaks, mainly because of the pressing involved.  And stitching that looooong seam in the binding, which was tedious but not difficult. I used my zipper foot to stitch this binding down on the front and it worked great. Plus, last time someone suggested that I do the sides and then do the corners last.  This was a great idea, at least until I get the hang of machine binding quickly.  Even with the "piping," my corners turned out great:

My only trouble with this binding is that I didn't realize that so much of the under fabric would be "lost" and the stripes would essentially be invisible.  Here is a swatch of the two fabrics I used:

See how much of the stripe pattern was hidden?  Next time I'll put a solid on the underside.  The good part is that you can use less of each fabric since they are both cut narrowly, so if you have a really cute fabric but not quite enough for a binding, you can still use it along with something else on the underside. Win!

Everybody have a great weekend.  I'll be checking my north side for moss.  Imagine finding some--wouldn't that be a situation? 

One last thing: The Academic Quilter is now listed on QuilterBlogs.com! We'll see what happens.  This does NOT mean there will be ads.  Still non-profit! But if you are looking for something new or different, head on over there to look around! 

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and also Finish it up Friday.