Mod Bear Paw Quilt - A WIP on the Design Wall

I've been posting some of my progress on this quilt on Instagram, but I thought it might be good to document it here too. This is a quilt much like the SAHRR (Stay At Home Round Robin) where I'm creating it on the design wall as I go, letting it evolve. It is such a satisfying and rewarding and yes, surprising process! 

Here’s where I’d got to on November 19 following Lorna’s pattern. 

I was so pleased! After I’d made the head section, I had a chat with Ann of @laughinggasquilts on Instagram who made this quilt about five years ago. I decided to take inspiration from her and add in some partial bear paw blocks behind and beneath my bear to enhance the layered effect.

I knew all along I didn’t want to make the entire quilt of bear paw blocks, but personalize it for my cousin Val for whom I am making this quilt. I’d planned to add trees, mountains, maybe some stars or some kind of northern lights effect because she lives in Jasper. Just how I was going to do this was not clear, but I knew I would play around on the design wall. This is a really exhilarating way to design a quilt for me. I have no clue what the finished product will look like as opposed to designing one in EQ8 or on graph paper and then making what I see on my computer screen or paper. The quilt becomes a sort of puzzle, but also a great challenge to my creativity to make a cohesive whole. 

Here are the stages the quilt has gone through so far. First of all I made a tree, using the Christmas Tree Farm pattern from White Plains Quilts I'd bought last year. I just made three layers of 'bows' (rhymes with 'ow!') and a 1" finished tall trunk to get the 7" finished size I needed to match the bear paw blocks. I put it on the design wall, thinking I'd alternate bear paws with trees for this fourth row, but oops...

The trees are 7" tall, but 8" wide! Still, I knew I could work with this.

Maybe centre the tree trunk over the vertical sashing...

What to do? Make more!

The trees are 7" tall, so I can figure out something to fill in on either side of the tree in the centre. Then I moved it up thinking of a zigzag look that I like to break up the straight rows look,

and that's when I saw the space below the centre tree could be filled in with half bear paw blocks! So I took apart the block on the right that you see in the photo above, added sashing and put it in place, moving the centre tree block down a bit.

And then I went to my graph paper to see if the math in my head was right for the exciting idea I'd had...it was! I could have a three-quarter bear paw block around that centre tree! This continues the layered idea. I made two more evergreen trees to finish off row 4.

How to fill in around the top ⅔ of that tree though...
Also note the potential 'ground' strip I came across in my browns scraps ziploc bag.

Well, when I drew it on my graph paper, the idea to make smaller evergreen trees popped in my head. 3" x 4" tall were perfect. They aren't sewn together here yet, and I will have to add a ½" rectangle the height of the centre tree to make it all fit, but squeal !

I still like the zigzag look to the large trees, but I've moved it back in line for now. I'll probably put in the grey sashing between the outside trees and the bear paws below them, but I may add some background below the two outer trees so they stick up into row 5. I like the broken up traditional straight sashed quilt look, if you get what I mean. It gives it a bit more zip or interest, makes it 'modern'!

What's next? Who knows?! I do know I will be adding in mountains, maybe in a log cabin style, a couple or more stars. For now, I'll sew all these parts together

As you can see, it's all earth tones, as I wanted the feel of nature, warmth and grounding. The background is a bit less than yard of a piece of Succulents I've had in my stash for several years, waiting for its 'home'.

©2015!

It works so well with the batiks! The cornerstones in both the block and rows sashing are cottons too, one Northcott, the other Benartex. I'm not sure if I'll continue in batiks, but I do know I'm going to flow into a different background because I envision sky but in full disclosure, I am almost right out of the Succulents background. 😬