Little Bits.....: Cody's Christmas gift

My daughter asked me one day why couldn't quilts be reversible. I told her they could but that was a lot of work as I knew what she had in mind.
This is Cody's Christmas gift. Kristina suggested that the 3 children could all use new quilts for Christmas. I had the fabric in my stash and I bought the black border fabric while we were in PEI. It works really well with the other fabrics.

This is the back. I used up every piece of fabric I had and then had to search out some more. I found the centre pieces in a box and as they were close enough to the theme I put them down the centre. They were suppose to be for another quilt years ago, but it never even got started.

I put two in one direction and the other in the opposite. This quilt's design doesn't mean in has to be one way or the other. I think that's why I like it so much.

When it came time to pressing the seams I pressed them open. With all of the seams in the top, I knew there could be some problems if they all came together. This wasn't how I was taught to do it, but my new LA does it this way, and I'm trying to learn to do it the way she prefers.

This is the inside of the top so you can see what my dilemna could have been.

I sandwiched the top together and thought I would stitch in the ditch with my walking foot. Didn't work! I had this problem before with a flannel quilt. Could not budge it. I took it back out of the machine and decided I would free motion quilt it. I looked through my continuous line quilting books and found this.

In each square I either did an oak leaf or an acorn. Then I stitched in the ditch with my free motion foot to secure it just a bit more. I drew a goose flying and used that in the side and corner triangles. I did them all with my very valuable Press 'n Seal. (I'm going to be that company's new best customer!)

When they were all done.................two days of work.............I had the borders to do. I decided bears and trees -- trees in the corners, bears along the sides. The inner border has stars in it. I called the quilt North Country. Cody has been going to Algonquin Park since he was a wee lad. He has seen bears and their cubs, his Mom kept him up late one night so they could go down to the Lake to see the night sky, so all of this is part of his camping life.