Last Spring, I was asked to make a quilt for my sister-in-law, Dorothy. The only requirements were that it have fabric showing black bears (very specifically must be black bears and not brown bears) and that it fit a queen size bed. Lana, Dorothy's daughter, and I went shopping for fabric and found what Lana thought would be the perfect backing. It had the right colors for Harold & Dorothy's bedroom. This is probably the first time I bought backing before having any of the fabric for the quilt top!
Lana and I both looked for black bear fabric and found a couple of examples online. No black bear fabric locally - go figure! Not many black bears in southern Indiana. I thought I might find some during the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat last Fall but none of the shops in northern Michigan carried black bear fabric, either. So I ordered a few samples from the online sources and started to look for coordinating fabrics to make the quilt.
This was also the first quilt pattern that I drafted. I used some cheapie software that I got at JoAnn's on sale and was pleased with the results. Based on the black bear fabric that had the best color combinations, I made the blocks rather large (16" square) and decided to alternate Bear Paw blocks with the bear fabric. The only real problem with the software is that it didn't provide total yardage requirements. That would have been extremely helpful.
On one of our quarterly fabric shopping excursions, Kathy, Deb and I explored a new (to us) shop - Pohlar Fabrics. There I found lots of fabric that would be perfect for the black bear quilt top. I bought several yards of the fabrics for the inner and outer borders. But for the Bear Paws themselves, I didn't buy very much of the light fabric - not sure why. Having gotten that far, the materials and pattern rested until I went to Cambria in March.
At Cambria, I embarked on making the "biggest honking Bear Paw blocks" that one of my fellow Cambria-ites had ever seen (probably any of us had ever seen, to be honest!). I got help making the half square triangles from the group as I hadn't made any before. It was starting to come together nicely - one of the reasons I stayed up until 3 a.m. sewing with the Kit Queen! I was really making progress on this quilt. And now for the real reason I didn't stay up later than 3 a.m. that night with Sherri...I didn't have enough of a tan batik that I was using as the cross pieces in the bear paw block. I was also beginning to realize that I needed an additional piece of light fabric to complete the final bear paw's toenails. Sob!
I checked all over to locate at least a scrap of that fabric - all I needed was enough to make 2 Bear Paws. Remember that they are honkin' big so that amounted to 4 squares of 4" square fabric - a fat quarter would do it. But could I locate a fat quarter locally? Of course not! That fabric was at least a year old, perhaps older and was apparently very popular.
In checking around, however, I stumbled on a web site that showed the fabric. You should bookmark the Quilter's Joy site as Betty Oatsvall was the absolute greatest help. When I called, she remembered the fabric and thought there might either be a scrap that would work or that she might have some at home. She checked and called the next day saying she had found a fat quarter and would be happy to send it to me. When I got her letter in the mail, it was too small for a fat quarter - she had found that scrap she thought she had and, sure enough, it was just the right size to complete the project. Just that little dab of fabric did it!
And here's the size of the fabric scrap - next to my big foot!
I worked on the quilt and just need to add the borders before loading it to quilt. Stay tuned to see the completed quilt in the next few days!
Cheers!
Margaret
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