Tip Toe, Through the Tulips...

I finished a quilt top today that will hopefully be a Christmas present (this year LOL), for my oldest niece. She was the recipient of my second or third quilt, a simple checker board quilt. At the time she was 3 or 4. We've been blessed with 5 nieces and a nephew (and 2 boys of our own). They all have at least a baby quilt that I made, and now that they're growing up so incredibly fast, I hope to start making them all bigger quilts to enjoy.

I was trying to figure out what to make for my niece. At the time, I really wanted to do a "bear paw" quilt as well. I was chatting with a quilting friend of mine about this, and joked that I should make her one, since she had been really scared of bears when she first visited our house in Northern Michigan. At the time, she was 5 or 6, and we lived deep in the woods, and yes, there were bears. Being the city girl that she was, her fear was understandable. But my suggestion was tongue and cheek at the time.

Well, no lie, the very next day, our family was out in the woods, and we saw a bear!! It wasn't a big one, and it was running down the gravel Forest Service road in front of our truck, but we followed it for several hundred yards, before it dove off into the woods! We all got to see it and were just amazed, as it's not a sight even people who've worked and lived in the woods for years see very often.

It was then that I knew I had to make this quilt! I hope she likes it!