The Pond Mountain Quilt

This is the quilt I started while we were on Pond Mountain for vacation last week, so what better name than the Pond Mountain quilt. I looked at it and it told me this morning that it was finished. So, no more border thoughts. We're calling this one Done.

This photo looks kind of flat, but in real life, the squares just jump out at me and remind me of the ripples that were formed on the pond when a bug would land on top of the water...ripple here, ripple there, each one small, but where two were close together, they overlapped. And, the occassional breaking of the water by a fish that was lunching on one of those bugs. the narrow border is a batik that looks like tree branches, so that's appropriate as the ponds were circled by trees. The colors are the colors of the trees; greens and golds and the occassional dark shrub in the undergrowth. All in a theme and all perfect for this little memory themed quilt.

Course, none of this was planned to be this way. It just turned that the choices I made before vacation were so appropriate to remember a quilt that was pieced on vacation.



The pattern is called Sam's Quilt from Sugarloaf Designs. I bought the pattern at least two years ago because I saw the quilt in my LQS, but they had done it like the pattern photo and used a dark as the background. I was intimidated and assumed it was difficult...and, I guess at the time I got it, it would have been because even with my current level of experience, it was tough to make all those lines match up when they crossed under another line. The whole quilt is pieced from 2" squares and 2" bricks, so it goes together pretty fast (with the correct marking and more than a little bit of seam ripping).

The fabrics are from the first traveler's "shop hop" that I planned for myself. It was in Cleveland and I went to all the quilt stores on my list and bought at least a half yard of fabric in each one. These are the fabrics that came out of that and are a mixture of batiks and more traditional prints like a dark red calico and a gold tone on tone and even some larger red flowers on a green background. When I collected them, I thought they went perfect together. But, when Rob saw what I was planning, he warned me about all the different "themes" in the prints, but I kept plowing on because, to me, the fabrics had been collected together as a coordinated set and I wanted to use them together. And, if it weren't for all the off white background, I don't think I would have been as happy about mixing all these themes in a non-scrappy quilt. But, it all worked out and I'm very happy to add it to the pile of tops that need quilting.

Speaking of, I guess I'll be moving to that machine this weekend and trying to knock a few things out. I really need to. And, I need to buy batting. The quilt shop owner in Arkansas last week also warned me about the rising cost of cotton, including the price of warm and natural batting, which is my fave for machine quilting. 20 months ago, I bought 10 yards with my Christmas bonus and I have enough left to piece together and make one more quilt. But, there are way more than that hanging and waiting.

(So, get the move on, boy! What ya' waiting for?)



This was my leader/ender for the Pond Mountain Quilt. It's all squares, but I overlapped it to take as little room as possible for the photo. All that's left is to sew the rows together and I'll have a top for my August Linus project. Yeah for me. Two quilts at once.

Now, two quilts to quilt. A busy boy is a happy boy.

Everyone take care and have a great Wednesday. I'm doing a rain dance to try to turn that 10% chance of showers into an actual thunderstorm by nightfall.

Hi-ya-yi-yah; Hi-ya-hi...where are my moccasins?

54 days over 100*. Better buy batting before the electric bill comes in.

Lane