Scrappy Bear Paw

Can you believe this is my most viewed blog post ever? Click here to read about my Scrappy Bear Paw quilt.  

Yes, people just love my Scrappy Bear Paw quilt.  I suspect it's because of the bright colours that I chose, and the simple hand quilting with Perle 8. 

Maybe I shouldn't have allowed my son to take it to his university hostel.  Actually, I don't mind.  I can always make another one when our guild turns 50 years old which is now only 12 years away.  

The display at Capital Quilters when the guild turned 30 years old.

Now it’s time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Another talk

Last week I was the guest speaker at Rose City Quilters in Palmerston North, this week I was the guest speaker at Capital Quilters in Lower Hutt.  

Yes, I had a last minute invitation to be the guest speaker at Capital Quilters last weekend.  Unfortunately I couldn't let you know, because like Palmerston North, the meeting was restricted to members only, with a maximum of 100 attendees.  

I hadn't really unpacked from my Palmerston North trip, so it was easy enough to scoop up a few quilts and put them in the car.  I changed my talk up a bit, and included some different quilts including this one:

This is my Scrappy Bear Paw quilt, made to celebrate Capital Quilters 30th anniversary. I love this quilt because it's nice and bright, and I did big stitch hand quilting with Perle 8. 

A lot of members made Bear Paw quilts that year, and we hung them all in the hall at Christmas 2015.  It looked amazing. 

Our guild is going to run a Bear Paw block of the month next year.  Maybe I'll be tempted to make another version when I see all the blocks on the wall.  This is why we chose bear paw.  It's in our logo. 

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Bear Paw is finished!

Yes, my scrappy bear paw quilt is finished and I'm very pleased with it.  It's bright and cheerful, and a very useful size too.  A number of people from our guild are making the same pattern, and we hope to have a big show and tell at our November meeting.  I'll post a photo when the hall is filled with lovely scrappy bear paw quilts.

I enjoyed hand quilting each block in a different colour of Perle 8 - my preferred method of hand quilting.

I started this quilt earlier this year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Capital Quilters Guild in Wellington, New Zealand.

You can read the background to it in this post from March, and see close ups of all my individual blocks in this post from May.

As some people pointed out on those earlier posts, we don't have bears in New Zealand, but the block was chosen by the founding members of the guild because of it's meaning as the hand of friendship. They wanted the guild to be a friendly place for quilters to meet, and they certainly achieved that.

The amount of low volume fabrics in this quilt is quite a departure from my usual style, but making this quilt forced me buy some low volume fabrics and start experimenting with them.  I've discovered that I like black and white, and grey and white low volumes, but I won't be crossing over into cream and white, they're just not for me.

Of course you'll see that I compensated for all that low volume by using plenty of bright Kaffe Fassett fabrics in this quilt.  When the idea was floated of making each block a different colour my first thought was my Kaffe Fassett stash.

I used a bright Art Gallery fabric for the back.  You'll see that I had to add a strip to make it wide enough.  That's what happens when you buy the end of the bolt, and then decide to add sashing to quilt top and it becomes too wide for the backing.  I don't mind though - it adds interest and colour.

I haven't made a label yet, but I will do a label to remind me why I made this quilt. I hope to still have it in 20 years time when our guild turns 50.  I wonder what people will think of it then!

Vital stats:
Block size:  20.5" square finished
Quilt size: 68" x 68.5"

This was one of four things on my Finish A Long list for Q3 2015.

Capital Quilters

We had our 30th birthday party at Capital Quilters on Saturday.  We were each given one of these very useful cloth bags to celebrate our 30 years as a guild.  I thought it was a really good idea.

I've already written my name in mine so no one else can run off with it.

On behalf of my Canadian readers, I put up my hand and asked about the origins of the bear paw logo, and why we, a guild in New Zealand (which I don't think has any life threatening animals) chose a bear paw as our logo.  There were at least 4 people in the room who were present when the guild started. They said that a vote was held, and people chose the bear paw because of it's meaning - Hand of Friendship, not anything to do with bears sorry.

I've started hand quilting my scrappy bear paw quilt. I'll use Perle 8 and big stitch hand quilting. Of course I'll colour co-ordinate, and use a matching Perle 8 for each block.  I don't even think that I'll have to buy any more colours of thread. I've got so many in my box.

The President of the guild stood down at the AGM on Saturday, and we had been secretly asked to make her a Retail Therapy block in her favourite colours of pink, purple and aqua blue.  I couldn't fit them all in one photo, but they looked great on the wall and she was delighted.

Aren't they great. Here's a closeup of my contribution:

I had to use zig zag because I couldn't get the blanket stitch to work on my old machine!  The beautiful Bernina in the photo at the top of this page is my brand new machine, which I'm just learning how to use.  I have a lesson on Thursday and things will be better after that.  I told my family that it's like moving from my 1979 Ford Escort (my first car) to my current Subaru Outback - everything is different! Electric windows, keyless entry and ignition, automatic transmission, dashboard handbrake, etc etc. My previous machine was a Bernina 910 that I purchased in 1987, my first year of working after university. It's done really well, but I want to do more machine quilting in future, amongst other things.  The new machine is so smooth and quiet. I love it already.

The new Bernina 550QE is both my 25th Wedding Anniversary present (June 2) and my upcoming 50th birthday present (October).  Here we were 25 years ago. Look at all that blow waved hair!  Yes, Serena and Carla, my bridesmaids wore purple!!!  Somethings never change.

I'm linking up to Blossom Hearts Quilts. It's her blog's 3rd anniversary and there are lots of prizes up for grabs.

Scrappy Bear Paw Quilt

I've really got to think of a better name for this quilt.  At the moment I'm just calling it what it is, a scrappy bear paw quilt.  I really didn't want to be tempted by new patterns this year, but this quilt has special significance.

I belong to Capital Quilters in Wellington, New Zealand, and the bear paw block is part of our logo.  Our guild will be 30 years old this year, and the committee came up with the idea of making bear paw quilts as a way of celebrating the anniversary.  Of course, members are free to make the quilts in whatever fabrics they like. Some people are using French General, others are using Tula Pink etc etc.

As I'm not quite 50 yet, I'm thinking that I might still be around when the guild turns 50 in 20 years time, and I can pull out my historic scrappy bear paw quilt and show all the "young ones" what we made back in 2015 when the guild turned 30.

When my friend Anne (@ihaveafabricproblem on Instagram) showed her single coloured scrappy blocks on low volume backgrounds, I was hooked.  I immediately thought of all my beautiful Kaffe Fassett fabrics and how I could use those in a quilt like this.  Most of you know that I've resisted low volume prints for a long time, so I had to buy fabrics for the background, but I made all the coloured sections entirely from my stash.

Here are each of the 9 blocks up close so you can see all the great prints.

this one is made entirely from Kaffe Fassett prints

I remade this block because I wasn't happy with the original version. The yellows weren't strong enough compared to the other blocks.

I found some great sashing fabric and joined the blocks up yesterday.

The quilt isn't finished yet, but I'm happy to have a finished top.  I need a bit of help with the next two steps if you'd like to help out please:

1. What sort of backing should I use?  I keep thinking that the Ikea text print would work here, but we don't have Ikea in New Zealand, and I hear it's being discontinued anyway.

2.  Should I add a narrow border in the same fabric as the sashing, or just skip the border and go straight to the binding?

Instructions
Many people have asked for instructions on how to make a quilt like this.  I can't really post the pattern exactly as it was given to me, but there are a lot of patterns and instructions for bear paws blocks on the internet.  Just so you know, here's what I did. If you're an experienced quilter you'll understand these notes:

cut 17 x 3.5" squares from bright fabrics
cut 8 x 4" squares from bright fabrics

cut 8 x 4" squares from background fabrics
cut 4 x 3.5" squares from background fabrics
cut 4 X 3.5" x 9.5" rectangles from background fabrics

I turned the 4" squares into HSTs by ruling a diagonal line and sewing along both sides of the line. I cut down the line and trimmed the HSTs to 3.5" squares.

Keep a picture of the block in front of you at all times, and double, triple check that your HSTs are pointing the correct way. Everyone I know has made a mistake at some stage.

I made each of the 4 sections of the block by forming rows of 3 and then joining them to make each section of the block (9 pieces). I then joined the top half together, sewed on the middle section, and then joined the bottom half to the top.  The block measures 21.5" square unfinished.

I cut my sashing at 2.5" wide and added cornerstones at the intersections.

I hope you can understand that.  Writing instructions is harder than I thought.  I think I'll stick to sewing.

Bear Paw blocks for Capital Quilters

My local quilt guild, Capital Quilters, will be 30 years old this year. This morning I thought back to what I was doing 30 years ago. I was living in Auckland and studying for my Bachelor of Commerce degree. I had a busy social life, but I was doing a bit of knitting and cross stitch in my spare time. I certainly wasn't quilting 30 years ago, but my mum was starting to dabble in it.

I only joined Capital Quilters last year, but they are very supportive and welcoming group. We meet once a month, and each month there is a show and tell. Quilts are held up on the stage, and the makers give a brief description of how and why they made the quilt. The quilts are then all hung on a rope that goes half way around the room. We break for tea and coffee and you can walk around having a close look at the quilts and chat to the makers. I really enjoy getting to see the quilts up close.

The logo for our club is the bear paw block.  New members are all given a little badge with it on.

Some members decided that it would be fun to make bear paw quilts this year to celebrate 30 years of the guild.  Some examples were held up at the January meeting and they were all quite different.   Some of them had dark backgrounds, some were French General, but the style I liked was a scrappy single colour on a low volume background.

I've now made 3 blocks for February, March and April. I'm taking a break until May now, but I am putting aside relevant fabrics as I come across them.  You can see the colours for some of the future blocks in the photo below: yellow, lime green, cobalt blue and pink. Yhen I'll just need to think of two more colours. Purple has to be one of them, but that leaves one slot free. Maybe black? I"m not sure yet.

And here they are together. They are quite big - 21" each. But it will be a fun quilt when it's done, and it will have special significance. Maybe I'll still be going to Capital Quilters in 20 years time when the guild turns 50. Then I'll hold up my quilt at show and tell and say I made this quilt back in 2015. The "young people" will probably think "how quaint".