Smokey the Bear Quilt

 As soon as I finished the Smokey the Bear top, I took it to Jackie and asked her to put it in front of the 3 quilts I had taken her earlier. A few days later she called and said it was ready. She and Sandy are so very kind.

Last month, I had mentioned about possibly making a Smokey the Bear quilt as a fund raiser for our local volunteer fire department. Our little town is home to Smokey the Bear and the annual Smokey the Bear Days are being held in a few days.  Our son and DIL had gifted me 2 bolts of this fabric last month

 so I quickly whipped up this quilt 

I selected this free pattern

I loved the orange with it up close, but once I got it all together, I didn't care for it as much. It still seems a little loud so I'm thinking it would have worked better if I had decreased the width of the strip or used a different color.

Still, I think it turned out cute and I hope it'll be a good fundraiser.

I used both fabrics on the back

And pulled this brown gingham and cut it on the bias for the binding

Jackie and Sandy quilted meandering leaves across it

It finishes at 60 x 75...a good snuggle size

I couldn't resist this photo op. 😊

New Project

 While the kids were here, they went into town one morning to look at a property. My daughter-in-law saw a quilt shop and asked to stop. She's not a quilter, but she does crochet.

The previous day, we had been talking about projects we both wanted to make. 

We live 34 miles from a little town that is the home of Smokey the Bear and Riley Blake recently released a Smokey the Bear collection. I thought it would be fun to make a quilt and raffle it off during the Smokey the Bear Days as a fundraiser for the volunteer fire department. 

My thoughtful dil pulled out 2 bolts of fabric from the backseat when they returned.

10 yards on each bolt! 😂

She had asked me how much fabric it takes to make a bed quilt and I said it depends, maybe 9 or 10 yards and then about the same for the back, but she hasn't seen my fabric stash. LOL. But how sweet of her. 

Smokey the Bear Days are the first few days in May so I'm under the gun. Initially, I had thought I'd make the quilt for next year, but now that I have been gifted this fun fabric, I figured I had better get to stitching. There's enough fabric for future quilts. 😉

I pulled coordinates from my stash

But since I'm in a little bit of a time crunch, I need something simple. I settled on this

The oranges in my stash were too loud, but I thought this one was a good fit. I had pulled it for another project. Orange is not a go-to color for me, but it seems to be finding it's way into more projects and this one seems to work well here without being too wild...at least that's what I'm hoping.

I still like my initial fabric pull so those will factor into the next quilt. So, in between helping DH build fence, I'm making time to stitch.