This is a quilt I made as a housewarming gift a while ago for my cute friend Beth. We met when I was a missionary in Texas and quickly became good friends. She and I can talk for hours and hours about anything and everything, even if we haven't talked in a really long time! Beth is 20 years older than me --almost to the day (our birthdays are 1 day apart) but you would think our ages were reversed...she runs and hikes and bikes and skydives --and does a lot of other really cool stuff I wish I had the energy (and/or guts) to do! She's a mom to 4 boys and is one of the nicest, most generous people I know! She is an amazing woman!

Shortly after I left Texas, she and her family decided to move to Idaho (where she is originally from) and build a house. And when I say build a house, I mean, they built it themselves--and Beth did most of it because a lot of the time her husband was still working in Texas! (Like I said, she's amazing!) When I found out she was moving, I decided to make her a quilt. (She probably would have been just as happy with a wind chime or something...but any reason to make a quilt is a good reason in my opinion!)

I used the pattern "Bear Country" by Debbie Field, (with a few modifications of course...I can't seem to follow a quilt pattern without changing it a little). I had a chance to visit the area where Beth was moving, and it is so pretty and peaceful-- so when I saw this quilt pattern, I loved that it had all the pictures of log cabins and bears and fish and elk and all the stuff that reminded me of Idaho. I added the night scene with the mountains--Beth's house is really close to the Tetons, so the mountains are supposed to look like the Tetons, although I must admit, they were harder to make in fabric than I thought they'd be!


Luckily it took them a little while to build the house, because it took me a long time to get the quilt finished! I found most of the fabrics for the quilt at a local quilt shop, and I made most of the quilt pretty quickly but then got stuck when I couldn't find the fabric with the little bear paws on it--or anything to replace it. So a few months later I happened to be at Quilt Market, and I ran into Debbie Field (the pattern designer), and told her of my dilemma and she gave me the phone number to a fabric shop that carried the fabric (score!). So I was finally able to finish the top. Well then I had a baby and moved across the country and it took me another year to get it out of a box and get it quilted!

This was a really fun quilt to quilt! I free-handed everything, going around all the applique shapes, and then making clouds, trees, grass, bear paws, etc. for the backgrounds and borders.