I’ve mentioned that I’m starting a new quilt that will be raffled at the Montpelier Center in 2027. I made the Fab Farm quilt for them in 2025 and it was raffled in December.
The quilt on the left is from the pattern Fab Farm. We named it Hanover Country Life. The quilt on the right was made by a lot of members of our group and I quilted it. It’s the 2026 raffle quilt.
I enjoyed Fab Farm so much that I decided I wanted to make another animal quilt and looked for a pattern that would be good for the next raffle quilt. I found a cute bear pattern that is just perfect. Our Montpelier community has become bear obsessed to the point that people have named one Monty. Monty used to show up on trail cameras regularly. Monty has since passed but people still love keeping up with bear sighting.
The pattern is Big Bear Forest by Stacy Iest Hsu. I put it in EQ to enlarge the sashing and add borders. The pattern quilt size is 70″ square and that just wasn’t big enough. The white border that you see in the pattern will be a gradient. The blocks are 12″ and the sashing is 2″.
This is the gradient that I will use in the border. I couldn’t decide on green or tan for the background so I dyed both. Once I had them spread out with the bear and tree fabrics, I knew that I had to go with the green. Each bear will be a different color, but all some shade of brown and the trees will be scrappy green.
This will be my Arizona project. I wanted to get it all cut out before I left but that isn’t going to happen. I will try to use my GO! cutter and, at least, get the triangles for the trees cut out. The rest I can do out there.
I’m excited to work on something new and I’m excited that the memory quilt top will be done by Monday!
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