A few weeks ago, when I first started my blog, my blogging friend Janet O
http://roguequilter.blogspot.com/
asked me about the bear quilt. So here's the story. I bought the center bear panel
at our local Wal-Mart store. Our son is such an outdoorsman - loves all kinds of hunting and fishing, so I thought I would do something with this for him. I thought and thought and thought (really I was busy doing other things, but I bet even when ya'll are doing something else, you're planning your next quilt project!!). I really like pine tree blocks, but have never made any, but went through my scraps and put together blues, greens and browns for the trees - I had to shop for some more greens to have a variety. So as I was piecing the tree blocks, I began imagining a twin size bed quilt and trying to figure out how to make it fit. So I designed the bears paws walking across the forest floor
Then I needed something on the top, so took some deer blocks and pieced them in the center of Ohio Star blocks on point (Ohio Stars are my absolutely favorite block!)
Then to make it all fit, I added the gold and brown narrow sashings, but still need something to get all the tree blocks around the border, so I added the flying geese at the top "of the forest". For the backing I found a wildlife scene with mountains and moose in blues, greens and browns.
I had extra of this fabric and made pillow cases and backing for throw pillows to match.
For the border, I used a brown fabric with oak leaves and acorns, and the binding was the same fabric in forest green.
I outline quilted the medallion, the bear paws, and deer star blocks. The sashings, borders and triangle blocks were zig zag to represent mountains. On the forest floor, I quilted acorns and oak leaves in the midst of cross hatching (my favorite quilting design). I won't tell you how long it took me, but Rygh loves it!!
Blessings!
P.S. It turned out to be a full-sized quilt! Much better!
