Mountain Crossing-Remembering South Carolina

Okay, I am sentimental. I  like to sneak a little symbolism into the quilts I make. Perhaps it's just a scrap of fabric that brings back a memory or represent something special to the person who will receive the quilt. At times it the theme of the quilt. My granddaughter Jana takes after me in that way. She wanted to make a quilt for her mother who lives in South Carolina. During her last visit  they took a trip to the mountains and  saw a "real live bear".  This made an impression on Jana.

Welcome To My Cabin

We browsed through quilt books, trying to decide what to make, and came across the quilt below in  Welcome To My Cabin by Nancy Smith and Lynda Milligan.. It perfectly represents the good memories and spirit of that trip south.

Mountain Crossing

We picked this before our recent adventure in applique, which was not so successful. However the instructions say these are done with fusible web. I am not sure what that means. Like....after it's fused on, do we stitch around.the edges?  It does not appear to be stitched in the picture. Another question is did they use the same thread to quilt the entire quilt. The border is certainly quilted with white thread. The patterns seems to be a continuous line, but white is not showing in the darker mountains. Are the bear and footprints fused after the quilt is quilted? Questions, questions!

I was going to machine quilt this myself, but not sure now. Even Jana says, "maybe you should send it to Sandy". I never really know what to do with these, other than stitch in the ditch. That's why the majority of my quilts go to the long arm quilter.

Log cabin blocks. They are easy to do, yes they are, and they are easy to mess up too! Jana turned these blocks over to me, and for some reason I had trouble. I had to keep double checking the orientation of the light and dark strips. I also had to do some ripping when a few blocks were a little wonky. All things considered we are making progress.

Jana shopped my stash and found fabric that is close to the picture in the book.

Mountains and sunset fabric for the sky

I have the first four rows finished and put together, but only have a picture of the first two.I think it looks better in person.

We have decided to add a second border and are auditioning fabric. This quilt is only 48" by 46". We would like it a little larger and I think a second border will work. I'm thinking about flying geese. Jana has learned how to do the spool block, so I think flying geese will be easy for her. I'll see if she agrees. We first auditioned a wild sunset fabric, but decided it overwhelmed the center, so whatever we do it will be subdued. Subdued is not really Jana's style, but she is actually being very thoughtful about the fabric for this quilt, realizing it's not for her, and that it should fit the person receiving it.

Well that is it for now. My machine is getting serviced and Jana is graciously letting me use hers.  I promised to get the dark purple row of mountains done this week. There are just four blocks to do, or two mountains.  I'm back to work and Jana back to school. The upcoming holiday weekend will give us some extended time for sewing. Hopefully the Craftsy BOM for September will be out. It is more applique, leaves and flowers, and I hope to learn something to help with this quilt. Hopefully my machine will be back and we can sew like mad.

Thanks for checking in.