The Voyageur Quilt!

The making of this quilt has been eagerly anticipated since the idea first popped into my head sometime in 2012. 

It was undoubtedly summers spent at camp in Minnesota as a young person which began my love for all things "North Woods".

me and my sister Anne, circa 1979 :)

Like so many others, the iconic Hudson's Bay Blanket has always really appealed to me, in it's many forms.  

how cool is this?

The closest I've ever come to owning one, however, is with what I lovingly refer to as our budget-friendly 

"Orvis Acrylic Facsimile" blanket :)

 Wonderfully similar, I get the colors and the stripes, but still....

Then it occurred to me (Aha!!) I could make a quilted knockoff!  I got really excited!  

 The more I thought about it the more fun the idea got!  

Make a quilt with the same measured stripes, except rather than a solid for each stripe, use a variety of prints for each band of color!  

I was certain no one else had ever had this amazing idea!  Of course, I was wrong! 

 Miss Make , I Love You Because, Making Lemonade and Little Mama Hen have each made lovely and fun recreations of the beloved blanket!

Charm packs to the rescue!

Since my stash of indigo, green, red and yellow is limited, I pulled charms from several different collections of charm packs to increase the variety in each stripe.  

And rather than trim the 5" squares to 3 1/2", I decided to use the full charm size and eliminate the stripe set from the "top" of the spread.

After those initial design decisions were made, the rest went together really easily!

I went with Kona bleached muslin for the rest of the top and the whole backing. 

What a slippery crisp yummy choice! 

And it is very large!
85" x 91"

lesson learned...do not "underspend" on safety pins!  They are not created equal!!!

The quilting of this behemoth coincided with the Spring Bloggers Quilt Festival, so I may have rushed it a bit in the beginning, trying to make it in...finally I relented, slowed down and enjoyed "the finish" at my own pace...good decision!

See? I work out! :)

note the "stripes" in the white section, to the right

So the quilting is not the greatest...yet the imperfections have their own "spontaneous regularity"!

But, y'know, I am well acquainted with my quilting limitations, knew 'em going into this project...
I did my best and got better as I went...which is the point after all, isn't it :)

and I am super pleased with the piecing...it came out exactly as happy as I had envisioned!

The binding is the same bleached muslin, except for the stripes.
Machine sewn to the front, hand stitched to the back.

I love my little label!

It has already passed the official nap test :)

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday @ CrazyMomQuilts :)

This is my 2nd Q2 finish :)