Elephants, quilt density and loading two at a time.

These elephants were the inspiration for these quilts.  I found this flannel, and knew that was what I wanted for backing these two baby quilts (my cousin had twins), and then I had to find fabric for the tops. 

I made 2 disappearing 9 patch quilts, with the same 3 fabrics in them, only the fabric placement and binding varied.

 The light fabric has adult and baby giraffes

And the grey fabric has adult and baby tigers, monkeys, elephants and giraffes

I started out quilting a wavy zigzag from block corner to block corner, which leaves an unquilted space about the size of my hand...according to the batting specifications, this density is enough to hold the batting stable and hold the quilt together. 

 However, I took into consideration that these are baby quilts, and will be washed weekly, daily, monthly??  Depends on how the day goes, as any of us who have had children will know.  So, I wanted more quilting, and added a line of stitching between the existing lines.

 and I'm much happier with that quilt density.

Here's a photo showing that I loaded the two quilts together--I made the backing long enough for both and when I reached the bottom of the first quilt, I just added the second, about a 1/2" or 1" away, and kept going.  This saves time in loading and saves backing, because usually I need 6" extra for each quilt, this way I only needed 7" extra total (thus saving 5" and a bunch of time)