Progress on the Polar Bear

Made some great progress on the Polar bear wall hanging at Quilt Camp this past weekend.

I worked up the background with 2 pieces of crushed velvet that have been waiting for this very moment in time!

The one said Northern Lights to me as soon as I saw it.

The other one was from a bolt of of crushed velvet that I had planned to make a dress out of --  in a previous lifetime, before I started quilting.  Those days are long gone!

This came as a kit from Quilting to Pieces Quilt Company in Appleton, WI.  They used a pattern by XXX, modifying it from a strange lavender Holly Bear to a much more agreeable Aurora Borealis Bear with stars in the sky.   I took it a few steps further with the velvet backgrounds and the crazy quilting stitches to applique the bear down. 

I did use the whites and creams in the kit to make the bear, but then I crazy-quilted all the seams down with different stitches.   I was also considering using scraps and laces from my own stash to make the bear out of linens and wools (left over from my wedding dress), but I didn't quite get around to that ...  Maybe another round?

I also trapuntoed the bear to make it pop out more -- more of a 3-D effect.  The bear is stitched to a piece of black fabric, then he has an additional layer of batting (actually -- recycled from a nice thick and puffy mattress pad).

I got so far as appliqueing the bear to the background, adding the borders, and sandwiching the batting and backing.  I did use the batting layer as a stabilizer for the velvet.  So the velvet is quilted to the batting before the bear was added on top.  I still need to go through all 3 layers now to finish quilting it properly.  Then the binding, label, and hanging pocket for the final finish.  The end is in sight!

Stumbled across this picture on Pinterest, but the source was gone.  If I knew where it came from, I would certainly give credit.