Out of the cupboard

 I made this  Bear Paw quilt in 2006 and I can't believe I haven't posted about it.  Anyway I call it Dancing Bears because the bear paws are in rows rather than squares like they are line dancing.  The majority of the dark prints are from Merryvale bundles.  The quilt guild which I was a member of back then would order samples from a company called Merryvale, they would buy the entire line of fabrics and sell them in 6 inch packets, 6 x 18 inch bales or by the yard. So each month the guild would get a new packet that we could order for the next month.  We did not have a LQS.  It was a great way to get the latest and greatest. It was also easy to stock pile the packets and bales but the best way to make them useable was to separate them by color and regroup.  I machine quilted this on my domestic machine, it took hours to manipulate all that fabric and my arms would get tired.  I could empty a bobbin of thread in 20-30 minutes if the thread tension was just right.  But it is so much easier on my sweet 16 machine. --Ann--