Skip to main content

Bjorn Bear [A Finish]

Back in September I started piecing a Bjorn Bear quilt for a little boy. It took me a while - not helped by forgetting to cut some pieces to take on retreat with me, but once I'd finished, I really didn't like it. And because of who it was for, I knew it had to be special. It was definitely not special.


I sat on it for a month, hoping it would grow on me but it never did. I couldn't even think of a way to salvage what I had done and improve it...So in the end I resigned myself to starting again. The little boy who will get the quilt is half Japanese, so I wanted to be careful that I didn't pick colours or items that would be inappropriate - I'd already sussed out the bears, so stuck with them. Research on number told me that nine was unlucky, so I'd already planned 12 bears, and so I stuck with that. Further research told me red was lucky and white wasn't, so I give you 12 red bears!


And I couldn't be happier with it - I love it so much more than the first version. The grey is Gotham Grey from Kona, and the reds are a Makower Linen texture (?); Makower Dimples, Moda Grunge and Moda Grunge spots. Kona White and Black Dimples complete the collection. The backing is a duvet cover from Dunelm. It's quilted in a cross hatch done with my walking foot. And then machine bound in more red!

The original blocks will sit in disgrace in my cupboard for a little while longer, but intrest has been shown in them from another party, so I think one day they will become a quilt of their own. So whilst this is a finish from my Finish Along list - I have completed a Bjorn Bear Quilt, sadly, it's had the result of adding another quilt to my list - don't tell the committee. You can find my original FAL list here.

Marci Girl Designs

Comments

Sew of Course said…
What a wonderful quilt for a little boy! And in the end there will be two quilts from your efforts, so nothing lost really... Thank you for participating in the FAL, on behalf of the 2018 FAL hosts!

Popular posts from this blog

365 Quilt Challenge 2016 [A finish]

I can't believe I've just typed that heading! When I made the block for January 1st 2016 I could not have imagined the journey this quilt would have taken me on. So make yourselves comfortable and grab a cup of tea, because this blog post may get lengthy! I'd seen the 365 Quilt Challenge on Facebook. I think every quilter on Facebook must have been aware of it. Loads of my friends had signed up and it kept popping up as a "Page you might like" thing. In the end, in November 2015, I joined the group, had a poke round. Decided it wasn't for me. One of the things that really put me off were the fabric requirements: you needed x amount of dark dark fabric, x amount of medium dark fabric, x amount of dark medium, medium, light medium, light, background.... I just couldn't get my head round those requirements. I'd looked at the mock ups on the wesbite and couldn't bring myself to pick a colour. I put it to the back of my mind. But I had obvious

Hidden Agenda [A Finish]

This is very possibly my favourite ever finish - I know I've said that in the past, but this one is going to be hard to beat. This time last year, I attended a day long lecture/workshop with Tula Pink and it was inspiring. Having not really loved her fabrics in the past (but loved her patterns), I suddenly saw them in a new light, linked with my 2018 new year's resolution to try more fussy cutting). Fast forward 8 months and I confess that my Tula stash has expanded quite a lot. I found some UK shops with older ranges of fabric, splurged on a few destashes and found the odd piece of her fabric already in my stash. The plan was always (and remains) to make a Smitten quilt, but I'm well aware that I have plenty of fabric to make other projects as well! So when I saw the Hidden Agenda quilt pattern by Angela Pingle, this fabric sprung instantly to mind.... and we all know I love a rainbow! And what could be better than rainbowfied Tula? I was ably assisted by my friend Ti

February Embroidery Along [A Finish]

I've really been enjoying my embroidery this year, after not doing very much last year. One of the challenges I set myself at the start of the year was to learn to colour tint my fabric before adding the embroidery - I love buying the pre-printed panels, but I'd like to do this myself as well. And the opportunity to learn this arose in February. Meg Hawkey of Crab Apple Hill Studio hosted a stitchalong to celebrate National Embroidery Month, and the first step was colour your fabric. I bought the pencils she advises,  the blending stumps, something called fabric extender and the pigma pen. And I gave it a go. My first attempt ended badly. Because the one thing I didn't buy was a new, clean paintbrush. So when I came to add the fabric extended, it went all bleary and muddy as, despite cleaning the paintbrush thoroughly, it obviously wasn't clean enough. It was unsalvageable so I started again, and I was so much happier with the results. The practice piece was, in

Labels

Show more