simple, scrappy Fun

I sell or gift most of my quilts, but there is a small collection of favorites which I have kept, these three included.

The two on the right were made for my book, The Quilter’s Field Guide to Color. As I recall, those scrappy bear paw blocks are rather fun to sew. Next month is my turn to lead the collaborative charity quilt for Comfort Circle of do. Good Stitches. A rainbow-blend Bear Tracks quilt is the project that I have chosen.

We’ll use the same concept as my book sample quilt - low volume backgrounds and single bear paw blocks. Simple, scrappy and fun!

To get things rolling, I set out to sew a few sample blocks this week. Here are the fabrics I’ve chosen. Each block has a main paw fabric, an accent claw fabric and a low volume for the background. You need very little of each, which makes it quite scrap-friendly.

I’ll ask my bee-mates to avoid white-background prints such as the ducks, because they don’t show well on the low-volume backgrounds. And, since we’re trying to make a rainbow-blend, I’ll ask them to skip multi-color prints. These are too hard to sort into a rainbow. Single-color prints or prints that combine analogous colors (such as yellow and lime) are best for a rainbow-blend project.

Here are my first three blocks. Pretty cute, right?

And then look what I found! All of these blocks are samples I had sewn for the production of my book. They were just waiting in my orphan blocks/book samples box, serendipitously perfect for this project.

So, that’s a nice start! I’m going to try to resist sewing more bear paw blocks until I receive the bulk of blocks from my bee-mates in February. I’ll make blocks then in the colors still needed to complete the rainbow. Looking forward to that challenge!