I had the great privilege of testing a pattern, Waltzing With Bears, by a designer I really admire, Sandra Walker who shares her patterns and projects at MMM Quilts. Sandra is a fellow Canadian and an Island Batik Ambassador. I’ve followed her blog and made a few quilts from her patterns and was thrilled to be able to test drive her newest pattern.
My granddaughter had requested a quilt and had picked these fabrics:
Here are the selvedge edges to show the designers/suppliers of these fabrics in case you need to get them
That beautiful stripe will be the binding on this beauty. I also used 3 pieces of fabric from my stash which were leftovers from other projects and did not have the selvedge on them.
My granddaughter had been chatting back and forth on the design of her quilt, but hadn’t quite figured out what to do. I decided I had to “borrow” the fabrics to make this quilt.
With all that had been going on in my life I really needed some fabric therapy.
This pattern was so well written I was able to convert the instructions to be able to use my Accuquilt cutter and Dies so it only took a couple of hours to cut even with the distraction of DH having news on almost constantly.
My blocks went together in an evening but then I had received some news which derailed me for a couple of days.
I started putting the blocks together while DH had the Presidential debate on the tv. Once I had assembled it I realized that several blocks had been flipped.
Trusty Jack was busy the next day assisting me in taking the whole top apart. There are only 16 blocks in this pattern so it didn’t take long!
My next stint at the sewing machine had the top reassembled in record time. As usual DH had the remote in his hand. His favourite night time occupation is flipping back and forth between Canadian news and American news and the tv is approximately 6 feet from my sewing table. Well guess what happened? I reversed the blocks in one column so Jack was put to work again.
Here she is in all her glory:
This pattern is very well written. In my opinion even a Novice Quilter could make this quilt and enjoy the process. I can only hope that your sewing machine isn’t near the tv for world events to distract you! Either turn the television off or wear ear buds and listen to a good book or wonderful music so your blocks don’t get turned around between your design board and the machine 🥴
This lovely quilt is in my To Be Quilted pile and as soon as I finish some other timely commitments it will be finished.
So thank you to Sandra for allowing me to test this fun to piece quilt which finishes at 56 1/2” square. This is the Waltzing With Bears pattern and is now available in Sandra’s Etsy Shop for a very reasonable price. Pop on over to Sandra’s Blog MMM Quilts to see the other versions of this quilt which was also tested by Anja from Anja Quilts and Jennifer Robinson. I’m in awe of their beautiful quilts!
Thank you for stopping in to see what fun I’ve been having. 😉 Carol
Linking with:
Quilt Schmilt 
Carol! I love the colours you have chosen for Waltzing with bears! And the pattern looks fantastic! Well done! 🙂
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Thank you Gail. I love Sandra’s patterns. It’s always easy to pull fabrics for them. ☺️
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I’ve made some of Sandra’s quilts (still in the top stage), and her patterns are so easy to follow. Waltzing Bears looks lovely, even after the missed dance steps as you were constructing the tops.
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Thank you Wendy. It was a fun quilt to make in spite of the debate debacle! 😉
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It’s such a beauty Carol! I just love the turquoise paws in the centre, but those rich teal ones – that fabric! Be still my heart. It is a great quilt and can’t wait to see how it looks when it grows up! Thank you so very much for testing the pattern and for such a great post on the quilt. 🙂 It should be in the shop on Friday, just a couple more tweaks needed.
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Thank you Sandra. I love the pattern and fabrics. As soon as the pattern is in the shop I will add the link to it. 😁
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The pops of purple make this quilt really sing! Amazing! Luckily my sewing machine is in a different room from either television. And DH has headphones so I can’t hear the things I don’t want to watch!
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Hi Judy. Thank you for your sweet comment. I do envy you having so much space to be able to avoid the noise! How nice your DH wears headphones!
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It was his idea, as his hearing is getting so bad! But I like it too!😊
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👍
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That is a beautiful quilt! How wonderful to test something where the instructions are already great! =)
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Such a pretty quilt. Love the colors you used.
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Thank you Colette. My post is now updated with links to Sandra’s post. 😉
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Love your colors! This is really fun.
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Thank you Emily. I do love Sandra’s patterns
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Such a lovely quilt! I loved your comment about turning the current events off and listening to a good book! You are so right!
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Thank you Danette. I love my earbuds! 😉
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