Quilts and Other Stuff from Frances

Bo’s Mountains

When I heard that our friends, Ruth and Austin, were expecting their first son, I knew that I wanted to make him a quilt.  I asked Ruth to be thinking about color combinations and to have a look around on the internet for pattern ideas that she liked.

She responded with the colors blue, red and gold and found a very simple, sweet pattern that she liked.  Her comment was that “they loved mountains” and that was why it had appealed to her.

I started the quilt in the usual way by pulling way too many fabrics out of the box and then weeding them down to the proper number…..

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Now I had to figure out the size of the flying geese (aka mountains).    I have to say that I was NOT at my brightest and best during this process and it ended up being a lot of trial and error, but eventually I had the strip put together……

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As I had sewed each triangle, I ended up with “bonus” triangles that had been dutifully sewn into more half-square triangles and then into more geese…..

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My thought was to include these geese somewhere in the body of the quilt, but I simply couldn’t find an arrangement that I liked……

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OR…..IMG_3139

so I moved back to the original design……

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I wanted to keep the strips as straight as possible so I used my 1/4 inch foot to do the piecing.  I LOVE the little edge that guides the fabric….IMG_3141

I then spent time debating about whether or not to add a border, but eventually decided to leave it simple.

After putting together the backing (while STILL trying to use the extra flying geese), I was ready to quilt.  Since I wasn’t sure exactly how I wanted to quilt it, I followed the advice that I always give to my classes and started with what I knew……   straight lines down the mountain/geese backgrounds…..IMG_3163

But where to go next……  I knew that the family loved hiking and especially fishing and I was sure that Bo would spend much of his life participating in these activities, so I felt that his quilt had to include references to those things.   After much thought I decided to split the larger section into strips and quilt each one with a different design, starting with mountains……

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…..followed by a line of trees……IMG_3490

…..a stream of trout……

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….a field of flowers……IMG_3494

….and ending with a few more trees.

I was happy with the back……IMG_3500

….happy with the finished quilt……

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….and even happier when I got to present it to the boy himself…..

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Michael and I wish only the best to this very special family…..IMG_3508

(Now I just have to figure out what to do with those extra flying geese!!!)


2 thoughts on “Bo’s Mountains

  1. “and the geese flew over the mountain… to see hwat they could see!” Luv the geese but simple is probably better. I did a delectable mountain wedding quilt for our nephew. Very similar colouring! So fun to quilt all that into the quilt. great job!!!

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