This Raven legend comes from the West Coast native people of British Columbia, Canada, and Alaska, USA. The Raven is their spiritual symbol of creation and change, and this story tells of the creation of the world. 

The beautiful images incorporated into a quilt will bring the story to life as you read it to sleepy young ones. They'll love to hear the story again and again on those long winter nights around the fireplace.

Supplies needed:

• 1/3 yard each of the blue and black fabrics

• 2 yards of red fabric

• 2 1/3 yards of print fabric

• 1 1/3 yards of beige fabric

• 1/2 yard of white fabric

• 45" by 60" quilt batting of your choice.

Embroidery designs from Embroidery Library:

• Native American Creation Quilt - large

Cutting and Embroidery

From the beige fabric, cut 6 squares that are 11 1/2" by 11 1/2". You will leave these squares blank for now.

Cut 6 squares that are 12" by 12"  on each of these squares you will embroider an image from the creation story. We used the Raven Block, Raven with Island block, Raven with bag block, Raven with people block, Raven with animals block, and Raven with trees block. The embroidery should be placed in the center of each block. When you are finished embroidering square up the blocks and trim to 11 1/2" by 11 1/2".

From the print fabric, cut 6 strips from the 45" width - each strip should be 2 1/2" wide.  From the strips, cut 8 pieces that are 11 1/2" long and 3 pieces that are 37 1/2" long.

From the red fabric, mark out 2 rectangles that are 50 1/2" long by 4 1/2" wide and 2 rectangles that are 37 1/2" long by 4 1/2" wide. These will be the border pieces. Embroider the quilt border down the center of each of the marked rectangles. Cut out the rectangles after you are finished embroidering.

On the white fabric, mark out 4 squares that measure 4 1/2" by 4 1/2".  In the center of each square, embroider the quilt corner design. Cut out the squares.

Assembling the quilt top:

Use a 1/4" seam allowance throughout.

Using the beige squares and the 11 1/2" print strips, make rows by stitching together alternating strips and squares. The first and third rows should have an embroidered square in the center with blanks on either side and the 2nd and 4th rows should have a blank square in the center with an embroidered square on either side. 

Join the rows together by stitching a 37 1/2" print strip between each row.

On each long side of the joined blocks, stitch one 50 1/2" red rectangle.

Stitch one white embroidered square on each end of the 37 1/2" red rectangles. This will create the top and bottom borders of the quilt.

Then stitch the borders to the short ends of the joined blocks. Make sure that the seams of the corner blocks match up with the side border seams.

Making the Prairie Point edging:

You'll need one point for every 2" or so of quilt edge. So measure the outer edge of your assembled quilt top, and divide the number by 2.  This gives you the number of squares that you need to cut.  We used 4 colors in our points, so we divided the number of squares needed by 4 to find out the number of squares to cut for each color. 

Cut out as many 4" squares as you need according to your calculations.

To make the individual points, first fold a square in half diagonally.

Then fold the triangle in half, perpendicular to the first fold.  All the cut edges should be on the long side of the triangle. 

Press the point so that it stays neatly folded.

Fold each point in the same manner until you have all the squares prepared.

Lay out the points along the edge of the right side of the quilt top and stitch them down as you go, using a 1/4" seam allowance. The cut edges of the points should meet the raw edge of the quilt top, and the points should overlap each other about 1/2".  When coming to a corner, the last point should come to the corner of the quilt, but not overlap the corner. Adjust the overlap on other points to make the last point land in the right spot. When you have finished attaching the points, press the points out from the edge.

Quilting:

Lay out the remaining print fabric with the right side down and lay out the batting on top of the fabric piece.

Lay out the assembled quilt top over the batting. 

Use a quilt basting gun or other method to temporarily anchor the layers together while you are working with them.

On each of the blank blocks, mark the center with 2 long lines. One vertical and one horizontal. Hoop all 3 layers of the quilt in the hoop, lining up the horizontal and vertical lines with the center marks on the sides of your hoop. No stabilizer is needed because the layers will provide enough support for the stitches in the stipple designs you will be sewing next.

In the center of each block, embroider a stipple design.  We used the man stipple, woman stipple, tree stipple, and raven stipple designs.

After you have finished embroidering the blank squares, quilt the layers of the rest of the quilt together by stitching in the "ditch," or joining line of each seam of the quilt top.

For some added texture, we used some squiggle stipple designs that we got for free from Elsa's designs. She has several sizes that fill up my entire hoop. I lined up several hoopings of squiggle stippling that made a 6" wide strip of stippling over the vertical print strips.

After you have finished all the quilting you want to do, trim the backing and batting to 1/2" out from the stitching line that joins the points to the quilt top. Fold the backing under and to the inside of the quilt, and stitch the edge down on all four sides of the quilt.

My grandfather, a devoted rock hound, who collected arrowheads, spears and pottery fragments from the farm fields around his home for many years, would have loved a quilt like this. He used to love to tell us stories about how the native people lived off the land and how creative and inventive they were in making everything that they needed to survive the harsh Minnesota winters.

What a wonderful way to pass on legends, stories, and family history.