Scrap Crazy Mama Bear Paw Quilt

The story of this quilt began back in 2017.  A year or two earlier I entered a contest on Facebook to win the Creative Grids USA Scrap Crazy 8 template set, and my name was chosen!  The funny thing is Creative Grids didn't even have to mail the set to me, I just drove down and picked up my prize from Karen Montgomery (designer of the templates) at her shop The Quilt Company.  I already made a couple of quilts with the templates and absolutely love using them with layer cake squares, but I also wanted to try making a quilt with my abundant scraps.  These muted, dark colors are not my favorite, but I had a lot of them from various projects over the years.  I thought I'd see what I could do with them.

I pulled some scraps I wanted to use and started drawing out an idea to make my version of the traditional bear paw quilt block.  I purchased the background fabric, but all of the other colored fabrics were ones that I already had stashed away.  Some of them I cut to 10" blocks and then cut the individual pieces.  Others I would cut a strip the correct width for the different size pieces and cut as many as I could get.  There are 5 pieces that make up this Scrap Crazy block.

This is the block that I came up with.  I also wanted to make something different for a border using the templates, and the picture below is the block that is repeated in the top and bottom borders.

 I posted the progress of this quilt on social media, and it caught the eye of some folks who encouraged me to write this as a pattern for Cut Loose Press.  I decided to go for it - what did I have to lose?  It makes me sound way more important than I am when I say (and it's true) that this is my best selling pattern.  I also went on to write a couple more patterns for CLP. 

That's the Cut Loose Press Scrap Crazy Bear Paw pattern!  I showed this quilt off last weekend at the St. John's UCC Quilt Show and taught some ladies how to make the Scrap Crazy block.  It was such a fun experience!  Here are a few more pictures of the Scrap Crazy Mama Bear Paw Quilt that started my journey in pattern writing.

I quilted this myself with an edge-to-edge design.  It is a large leaf design which is a good scale for a large block like this, and it is nature-y which seems to fit the theme, like a bear in the woods.  Started in 2017 and finished in 2021.

You will be seeing more quilt patterns from me in the future (at least that's the idea:-).  It's just taking longer than I planned!

I just love this picture in front of the Tulip Poplar behind our house.  Take time to enjoy the beauty of autumn.  Thanks for visiting!