Making a Bear Camp Quilt 

My Bear Camp quilt had been hanging in a closet for nearly a year, so I decided it was time to get it finished! 

Giving in

Who could resist the appeal of this gorgeous pattern? Well, I did until fall 2023, but then I gave in. I loved the look of the cover quilt, so I sourced a kit with all the required fabrics from Sew Curated. This exact bundle is no longer in stock, but they do have a nice selection of kits for different patterns!

Look how pretty all these colours look together - Amanda (the Bear Camp designer) has a real eye for colour combinations!

Making a Bear Camp quilt at Retreat

Right after my fabric was delivered, I travelled to a quilt retreat in Wisconsin. Since this is such a simple pattern, I thought it would be a great choice to bring with me. There tends to be a lot of chatting at Retreat, which doesn’t lend itself to working on difficult patterns (in my opinion). No Elizabeth Hartman patterns for me at Retreat! 😆

I pulled out the fabric on my last day, and had my Bear Camp quilt assembled in an afternoon. It was easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Ignoring my project

Then I came home and hung the completed quilt top in my hall closet for the next 11 months (the closet where we store out of season coats and shoes). I would have forgotten about it completely had I not recently needed a fall jacket on a particularly brisk September afternoon. 

When I spotted the Bear Camp quilt top, I made up my mind that it was time it finally got its chance to shine. 

I scrounged in my pile of backing fabric and found a sweet aqua-coloured Fireside fabric. It’s similar to some of the colours in the quilt top, so I decided it would be a great choice!

Quilting 

Thanks to the longarm machine in my basement, I was able to get this quilted up in no time. I chose Scallop Fan by Molly Kohler for the pantograph, and I love how the little clouds in the middle of the fans are a bit puffy (thanks to the cuddly Fireside backing). 

Binding

Since I had some leftover fabric from the quilt top, I thought it would be a great idea to make a scrappy binding. Now there’s literally nothing left over from this quilt - I used every single scrap I had!

I love the fun pops of colour around the exterior of the quilt - I think it adds some extra whimsy. 🙂

I debated how to finish the binding on this quilt - truth be told, I still haven’t figured it out 100%. For now, I’ve simply sewn the binding to the front of the quilt, wrapped it around to the back, and glue basted it in place. That allowed me to take some pictures of this “finished” Bear Camp quilt while I decide what to do. 

In the end, I’ll probably hand stitch the binding for a clean look, although I’m still considering Big Stitch binding. 

What would you do? Let me know in the comments!