Bottomless Bear Paws Quilt Pattern – Yardage Version

I’m back again to tell you some more about my new quilt pattern, Bottomless Bear Paws.

In my last post I went through all the details of the FQ friendly version, which you see spread out in the photo above. Let’s now have a chat about the other version, which is the navy quilt you see there.

Once I’d finished my FQ version I thought to myself it would be fun to substitute a different block for the paw pad square in the bear paw block. Hearts came to mind because they just look so sweet, especially in a baby quilt. But really, you could substitute in any block that comes to the unfinished size of those paw pad squares. You could have a lot of fun there!

Because I wanted colourful, scrappy little hearts, I felt it would be less hectic with a single bear paw fabric across the quilt. And so this was how the yardage version of the Bottomless Bear Paw quilt came to be. And of course, you could simply use whole scrappy squares for the paw pads if you don’t want to be bothered with sewing up the hearts. Lots of options!

My Baby Size Bottomless Bear Paws Quilt

I made my Bottomless Bear Paw quilt with a navy solid background fabric and a low volume fabric for the bear paws. The heart blocks were all from my scrap pile in shades of aqua, coral, pink, purple, orange and yellow.

As I’d quilted the last quilt with straight lines, this time I decided to use wavy, organic quilting along the length of the quilt.

I started in the middle of the quilt and worked out to each edge. I used the corners of the blocks as a visual guide to avoid having to mark any lines. As you may have noticed, I really don’t care for marking lines. I’ll do it if I have to, but some of my nicest quilting has come about from me thinking hard about how to avoid line marking!

These first lines, based on the block corners, were quite spaced and served to secure everything. Then I was able to go back and fill in the empty space using the bear ‘claws’ (the triangles) as my guide.

For binding I chose to use my background fabric (the navy) to create a bit of an edgeless look. Nothing to distract from all those cute lil colourful hearts.

I machine sewed this binding just like the last Bottomless Bear Paw. My thread collection had a spool with a very close colour match, which was convenient. I used my old faithful machine zigzag stitch to secure it once it had been sewn on. The thread blends right in and is hard to see. I actually had to lighten the photo below a bit so you could see the thread. (That’s why the fabric looks more teal than navy.)

I’d recently found a nice new duvet cover at an op shop (thrift store), which I cut up to use as a backing. I needed something that would go with the navy binding and the cover had a navy design printed. It’s maybe a little serious looking for a baby quilt, but it saved me piecing a backing. Phew.

And that’s all I have to tell you about the yardage version of this Bottomless Bear Paw quilt pattern. If you’d like to sew on up you can find it here in the shop.

I do hope you’ll create your own version. And send me a photo so I can see what you come up with!

Find Bottomless Bear Paws right here. Happy sewing!

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