For a woman who hates quilting, I seem to be knitting a lot of quilts lately. However, ever since my Canada quilt, I have been intrigued by the idea of putting some of Benjamin Chee Chee’s work into a quilt.

Benjamin Chee Chee was an Ojibwa artist from Ontario. He developed his own unique, beautiful, graceful, minimalist style of drawing. He died far too young.

I love the grace and movement in his pictures of Canada geese, and would like to gather some of them into a quilt. My oldest niece is getting married next summer, and I would like to make this for her, since she is also an artist, and we discovered Benjamin Chee Chee together when she was a child and both loved his art.

July 2014: All 20 squares have been knit. Now I need to knit borders for each square and sew them together. I will knit a simple cabled border around each square in white and have a purled square at each intersection in the same dark gold as the accent in each goose.

late-July 2014: And all squares are bordered and sewn together. I’m calling this finished for now, since it will be a while before I find the fabric for the back and the fortitude to quilt it all together.

May 2015: The wedding is coming up soon, so I am working on quilting the back to the front. A quilting friend suggested using a stretchy fabric for the backing to match the stretchiness of what I knit. I found an off-white T-shirt jersey fabric, and I love how it is coming together.

June 2015: Gave the quilt to my niece and her fiance (now husband). They absolutely LOVED it!