Bears Paw Quilts

A long time ago, my landscaper son was just a little guy and ready to graduate from a crib to a normal bed and I decided to make him a quilt. I was still very new at this quilting thing and went to the fabric store to buy some fabric. His favourite colour was green and so I found some great cotton fabric with fish hooks printed on it and bought a bit of the green and a bit of the cream. The polished cotton was great for cutting out, but not so easy to piece, but I persevered and pieced the twenty 12" blocks one at a time.

Bear's Paw quilt

Because I only had the pattern for the block, not the entire quilt, I didn't have the convenience of someone calculating the correct amount of fabric and I barely had enough to finish the blocks needed. I had hoped to add a border, but the fabric was no longer available and I didn't have a circle of quilting friends to ask if someone else might have what I needed.

So soft!

The quilt was layered with a polyester batting and some unbleached cotton muslin for the back. And, because hand quilting was all I knew, I hand quilted all the blocks. And again, the polished cotton was not my friend!

Muslin backing and hand-quilting

Binding was still a mystery for me and I bought pre-made green bias binding from the fabric store to bind the edges of the quilt. I carefully pinned it and sewed through all layers at once - it did the job, but didn't look very pretty!

Store bought binding

Now its 25 years later and we used this quilt over the weekend while we were camping at the beach as a beach blanket. The polish is off the cotton, the hand-quilting has held up and the binding hasn't faded a bit! Some of the fabric is worn through, but it just shows that this quilt has been used and loved!

Do you have an old quilt with a story? Tell me about it!

--Ann