Plus Quilt

I'm totally in love with these colors.  Aqua is my go to color for just about everything; clothes, wall paint, toys.  Even my glasses are aqua.  And orange is just a given.  Everything benefits from a little bit of the right orange.

But I was a little scared and in love with the citron in Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley Line.  I bought a bunch for another quilt for a friend, but only ended up using a little.  So I've been staring at the rest of it, trying to figure out how to use it.  Turns out, if you just add navy, everything plays nicely. 

I used a tutorial from For The Love of George (now you can just download the PDF!).  She provides all the measurements and cutting requirements for a queen size and a toddler bed sized quilt.  It's really a quick and easy pattern to follow.

I used two citron prints and one of the orange prints from the Hope Valley line, and the aqua and the other orange are both from Denyse's line for JoAnn Fabrics. The navy is from Dear Stella, and the teal is an Amy Butler print.  I think the aqua dots are from JoAnn's as well, though I bought it so long ago I can't be sure. 

The back is a big piece of Four Square.

For the quilting, I wasn't really sure what to do, so it hung off my shelf behind my sewing area for quite a while waiting for inspiration.  I love doing super dense quilting, but couldn't think of what motifs would really go with the plusses.  I almost did it alternating straight lines and pebbles, but I think the textural contrast would have been too weird here. 

So in the end, I went with all straight lines done with my free motion foot in a color that matched the fabric of that plus sign.  I just eyeballed the distance, trying to keep the last line just to the outside of my free motion foot, so they ended up being around a half inch apart.  At the ends of the line, I just looped gently to the next instead of stitching in the ditch to get a crisp end of the line.  I think it's more fun this way.I also alternated which way the lines went, so each plus sign's quilting runs at a 90 degree angle from the one plus signs it touches. 

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts' Finish It Up Friday!