The Great Smokey Bear

My husband has been a Smokey Bear fan since he was a kid, and he even contemplated becoming a Forest Ranger because of Smokey Bear.  So, when the opportunity presented itself to create a quilt using the Smokey Bear fabric and panel, I was not sure I could say “YES” fast enough!!    I could not decide on one design, so I created a two-sided quilt instead!!  The front is a Bear Paw block sashed with Pine trees, and the back of the quilt has the panel surrounded by Bear Paw blocks.  When incorporating panels into your projects, I like to find inspiration for the rest of the quilt within the panel itself.  Smokey Bear, obviously, Smokey is a bear, so the Bear Paw quilt block was an easy addition.  In recent years, Smokey’s slogan has become “Only you can prevent Wildfires,” but I grew up with Smokey’s slogan being “Only you can prevent Forest Fires,” so I added the Pine trees as sashing to represent the forest.  I quilted it with an allover Flames stitching pattern to tie it together.   

The back of the quilt was inspired by a quilt from my book “Quilting with Panels and Patchwork.” In my book, I have a quilt featuring Frankenstein, where I frame the corners of the panel with three parts of a quilt block (shown below). As quilters, we think in four portions or the whole quilt block, but for Smokey and Frankenstein, I think three portions are perfect!

Smokey Bear became an American Icon in the 1950’s as a bear cub surviving a fire in New Mexico. It is quite an incredible story! You can read all about Smokey at Smokeybear.com see actual pictures of Smokey.

Close up of the front of the quilt to see the charming Smokey Fabrics from this collection.

Kits and the pattern to make this quilt will be available soon through my Etsy shop https://footpedalproductions.etsy.com, along with other patterns and autographed copies of my book.

Follow me on Instagram @shannonarnstein and tag me with your creations.

Another View of the front of the quilt.

A close-up of the back where you can see the “flames” quilting to tie the theme all together.