Finished Quilt Interruption - Dad's Deer Panel Quilt

While visiting my mom towards the end of September, I decided to take the panel I got to make my dad a quilt. I had purchased additional material with really no plan whatsoever to put it together.

Likely why the panel sat undone for so long.

But, the timing seemed perfect to get it done in time for him to have for Christmas. He and my stepmom also purchased new recliners, so, it was off to the races.

My mom had recently finished a quilt for my nephew and after reading the instructions, I had enough material to make it work (and then some). After going through everything, I picked five of the colors I had and rolled with it. The pattern I picked is a free pattern found on the eQuilter Blog called Call of the Wild Bison.

I think the hardest thing about panels is cutting them down to size; I don’t typically use my Best Press on them as I don’t want the material to shrink down (I’ve watched this happen), but I may get some regular starch to try next time. The pattern allowed me to make adjustments along the top and bottom. As the sides were strips only, I could adjust as needed.

I took this to Sew in 2 Quilts for quilting. I wanted a very simple quilt design so the panel wasn’t lost and remained the centerpiece of the quilt. Mission accomplished and then some - the quilting looks like wind blowing through the forest giving the quilt another nice touch. For my backing, my friend Sheria and I made a trip to Hamilton, MO and I found a beautiful ombre 108” wide material.

At first, I had wanted to do a scrappy binding, but when I got the quilt back from quilting, the plan wasn’t sitting right. I had enough green left over and when I tested it out, made a nice frame for the quilt. Truth be told, I’m not the world’s best binder and that fact has been what has been keeping me from selling my quilts. Plus, with the ombre on the back, I was worried I’d have a ton of stitches shown where the colors didn’t match. However, I had my glue basting tools and decided to give that a go. Total. Game. Changer. I “stitched in the ditch” and everything turned out great. Best binding I’ve done to date.

I’ll definitely be using this pattern again - I put the top together in a few hours (let’s say a day) and the pattern lends itself to multiple panel uses (meaning, it isn’t specific to this panel only, it is adaptable to others). Also, this design does have more of a masculine feel which I appreciate. I can’t comment on if it is wasteful or not; I’ll have to make it again as I used material I had purchased earlier and not in mind for this specific pattern. Instructions were clear and straight forward.

As a little extra bonus share for you, here’s my mom’s version!

Hope you enjoy - let me know in the comments how you feel about quilt panels.