Jasper Quilt Finish

I have another finish which makes two in a week! I figured I’d be able to get the Jasper quilt quilted between Project Quilting challenges, and SAHRR prompts and I’m so happy that I did. If only the weather had cooperated for better photos, but oh well, I can always add in one or two when the sun decides to shine on us again.

As you may recall, this quilt is going to my cousin Val, who lives in Jasper. As you may also recall, the town of Jasper was evacuated last summer due to a raging wildfire that roared through the town, destroying one third of the homes, various buildings and businesses over the course of its rampage. Val’s home was one that was burned to the ground. 

Val has lived in Jasper for most of her adult life. She’s worked at several facilities there, mostly with Parks Canada. One of her first jobs that all of our family thought was super-cool, because it is, was being flown around in a helicopter counting bears, grizzlies to be exact. This is why I knew her quilt needed to have a bear on it and I immediately thought of Lorna‘s Mod Bear quilt which has a grizzly on it. How do I know this is a grizzly? Unlike other bears, grizzlies have a distinctive hump. Interestingly, the hump is actually a large mass of muscle that attaches to the backbone, giving them extra digging power. (National Wildlife Federation)

You can read about the development of the quilt by clicking on the posts that are linked at the end of this one; however a quick summary is that I knew I wasn’t going to make the bear quilt in its entirety, but use it as a starting place, morphing into iconic Jasper nature components such as the evergreen trees, mountains, and of course, the aurora borealis.

In case you missed these on Instagram, here are some quilting in process shots.

Up and down lines in the aurora borealis and night sky

Several different dot-to-dot and echoed lines quilting in the mountain range 

Swooping tree boughs in the evergreens

Mountains detail: winter trees in the valleyFMQ-ed on the longarm, and snowdrifts in three of the mountaintops FMQ-ed on my Bernina with Sulky metallic. Sadly the sparkle doesn't show up in photos as in real life.

More mountains. Here you can see the deer heads with antlers fabric originally intended for binding that worked so well for mountain texture. Also look at the navy batik I had to use somewhere in her quilt: Bigfoot  or grizzly footprints—perfection! This one and the blue/green one to the above left of it that evokes lakes such as the incredible Peyto Lake or Pyramid Lakes, to mention just two of the many stunning ones in the area, are both Island Batik fabrics.  

  

Grizzly bear fur

When it came to quilting the bear again I want to acknowledge the photos and post of Ann at Laughing Gas Quilts from her Bear in the Woods quilt she made in 2019. It’s a beauty, and it inspired the idea to quilt fur on my grizzly as she did. Like Ann, I looked at several grizzly photos to try to get the fur direction correct on body, head, outer and inner legs. Grizzlies have longer shaggier fur than other bears.

Flowing back and forth lines in the background of the trees and in each bear paw block. Top left is another 'foothill', like those in which we used to camp along the Forestry Trunk Road, is FMQ-ed with winter trees.

I did all the back and forth lines, vertically and horizontally, free-motion. I'll admit it did give me pause trying to figure out just what I would do behind the trees and in the bear paw blocks themselves. I stitched in the ditch on all the sashing and cornerstones, but elected to leave them otherwise unquieted. The Essential Stone colour of thread blended nicely over all the batik paws. I used a total of five different thread colours, and three different types: cotton, polyester and metallic.

Horizontal back and forth lines went in the bottom border as well which I see as the ground upon which the bear is lumbering, as I mentioned in one of the construction posts. This is a nod to the "diversity of Indigenous Peoples (who) used this land as a meeting ground, gathering place, travelling route, and home." (Municipality of Jasper)

If you look closely, you'll see Val's name FMQ-ed in the green/blue paw of the lower left bear paw block, and my initials in the block beside it, just below the brown paw.

The binding, which I sewed onto the front and topstitched down onto the back, has a story. I'd bought this .5 metre to perhaps use in my lake-themed quilt, thinking it might make a good binding. I love a striped fabric as a binding. Well, when I did the final pull for Seacliff Beach, this didn't make it in the fabric for the quilt top, and in another post-menopausal brain blip, I didn't even think of it as binding for that quilt (!), filing it back on the blues shelf of my stash. I stumbled across it the other day while looking for something or other and smacked myself in the forehead (again). I mean, it's fine that I forgot to use it, as I do love the teal that I did use as the binding for the lake quilt, which is in the quilt. For Val's quilt, I had intended to use Emily Herrick's grey deer heads with antlers fabric, Rustique for Michael Miller Fabrics, which is in two of the mountains (sideways). When I was cutting it, the grey colour just didn't have the right feel somehow, and that's when I recalled the blue stripe fabric. Hard as it was to let the deer fabric go (I mean come on! Deer!) I used this one and I'm so glad I did because it's perfect, and? It's called A Walk in the Woods!

Here is the back. The post about building it is linked below. I love how it turned out: autumn leaves and more leaves, moose in the wild, aurora borealis and a Canada goose in flight. The label is last on the right in the row.

At the time of the fire, Val was working in the dispatch department. As all of Canada watched in horror, the entire town of 25,000 people was evacuated on July 22, save for the firefighters themselves and Val, since she had such a crucial position. Luckily her husband was able to load up their travel trailer with some key items, though as she said, never did they think they'd lose everything; therefore many items they wished he'd had time or thought to take got left behind. How do you pack up an entire household in a few hours? Amazingly, he did think to take photos of open cupboards and closets for insurance purpose, and grabbed precious items like passports. Just stop and think for a moment what you would take were you given a few hours to do so... 🤯 Val stayed behind on dispatch as the lone operator. Then, the next day or maybe the second day afterwards, when she was evacuated immediately before the firefighters, everyone realized there was no hope to stop the fire from entering the town. Forces of Nature can truly humble humans as we are seeing again and again as our planet warms and powers that be who could DO something refuse to listen to scientists. Don't Look Up (the film) is what we are literally living. 

Residents were not allowed back in until August 16, and news trickled out regarding the colossal damage: 358 of the 1113 structures were destroyed, many of them heritage. What is heartbreaking personally for Val besides the loss of her home, which, like us, they had been slowly renovating themselves over the years and had it pretty much perfectly set up including the best her perennial garden had ever looked... is that her 60th birthday was the following weekend, and she was due to retire in just one week, on her birthday weekend. Yeah. Let that sink in for a moment. However, since her boss was away on holiday literally on the other side of the world, she did elect to stay on for another month until he came back. 

An attempt at giving it a little evergreen backdrop

I was a bit concerned that the fur I quilted on the bear might take away from the panel of wildlife scenery I'd made for the back, but it is just fine: the moose and the aurora squares are still very much visible.

The paw prints fabric used for the bottom frame under the aurora square is a nod to Val's beloved dogs, one of whom she lost just the previous year. I have heard that they have decided to rebuild on their lot, so I'm hopeful that can start this summer once various red tape items are worked through. I hope this quilt helps her know people really do care and wish to help in some small way. Red Cross donations are another way to help, always remember that for these tragedies.

Jasper Quilt Posts

Bear Paw Quilt On the Design Wall

Finished Flimsy

Building the Back

Quilt Stats:

Size: 50.5" x 58.5"
Fabric: batiks by Island Batik and other companies, backgrounds are Succulents by Heather Givans for Windham Fabrics; centre squares for bear paw blocks are an unknown Northcott and Evelyn's Tulips by Jackie Robinson for Benartex; sky is Comet by Maria Kalinowski for Kanvas, Floral Illsuions by RJR Fashion Fabrics, Wanderlust by Paula Nadelstern for Benartex; border is Texture Scapes by S&A Fabrics and an unknown batik, binding is A Walk in the Woods by Jennifer Heynen for In the Beginning Farics; a variety of fabrics, too many to name, from stash for the mountains, sky, trees and borders.

Batting: Hobbs fusible 80/20% cotton/polyester but I did not fuse it

Backing: Summer Nights and Northern Lights by Holly Taylor for Moda Fabrics and a JoAnn's fabric

Pieced: on my Bernina

Quilted: on Avril, my Handiquilter Avanté: 91 236 stitches; 'snow' quilted with Sulky metallic on my Bernina

Threads: pieced with Aurifil; quilted with Essential cottons in navy, bark and stone and Exquisite polyester in green; Superior Bottom Line and Robison Anton rayon in the bobbin

Linking Up

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