A Friday Finish!

I finished the X-plus quilt!

The recipient specified her love of bright colors, and the rest was up to me. I have been wanting to do a Japanese X-plus quilt ever since that design started showing up on Pinterest (such a great tool for concrete inspiration! here's my patchwork Pinterest board), so here is my first in that vein.

I was pleased that it was not necessary to have the same saturation degree for all of my colors, and still to have it "work". Perhaps it even worked better because--for instance--my orange was not a true orange, but a slightly less aggressive "carrot" (on sale for $3.48 at Connecting Threads). Perhaps the less intense colors make the quilt more live-able.

This quilt required row-by-row piecing of blocks to ensure the background block colors. The basic block has the "plus" in the middle, so, for instance the one gold-background block in the middle zone is actually the intersection of four block corners.

from Portland Modern Quilt Guild

It was long-arm quilted by my dear friend Judy Robey, of Waukee, who took time out from her busy sewing schedule for me. The back is an orange "Quilters Showcase" print I found at Jo-Ann's: in fact I had to go to two separate Jo-Ann's stores to have enough for the back--and I finished off both stores' bolts! Jo-Ann's prices have shot up for the "designer prints"--as high as $12.99 per yard!--but this line of nice modern calicos is always reasonably priced.

Can't wait to get back into the studio next week. My next project involves strip- and possibly crazy-piecing the mounds of scraps in my bins, like this maybe? 

Heartspun Quilts - Pam Buda

...then pairing the strips with large solid blocks. Meanwhile, I'll see if my friend Liz's long-arm is ready for use again, so I can finish up my Paducah 9-patch and send it off to my exceedingly patient cousin in Arizona.