Here's my second go at the scrappy rainbow plus quilt -- the first one is shown in this post. In the first one I made each plus out of 5 different fabrics in a single color. In this quilt I made each plus from a single fabric. This time I used a light gray for the background solid and a very dark navy (it looks black here) for the binding.
Here they are side by side. I do think that the single-fabric pluses are much bolder, particularly when you see them in person.
I particularly like the way the gray crinkled up so nicely when I washed it. I also figured out to position the point at which the lines of quilting crossed a seam-allowance-worth away from the edge so the point would line up with the edge of the binding, rather that being covered up by it. You know what I mean, right?
Here's the back, with a giant scrappy rainbow plus and yet more of that bolt of black/white calico. Still some left though.
I would like to point out how I even got the quilting lines (almost) lined up with the squares on the back. Pretty darn close -- we'll call that a win, right?
Ok, I think I'll consider this quilt accomplished and move on. Even though I still have a lot of 3.5 inch squares left...
I loved this quilt by Ashley at Film in the Fridge so much that I wanted to make one for myself. I liked the scrappy color combinations and I thought I could probably pull the whole thing from fabric I already had.
The hardest thing about it was because the pluses fit together, you can't piece each one and then join them together to form the whole top. I had to lay the entire thing out on the bed (some quilters have a "design wall" -- I have a "design bed") and then break it into sections. There's not a whole lot of intuitive order to each section, so I had to pay attention to the pattern as I was sewing. I will admit that there was some swearing and ripping involved.
I used some extra squares (and oh, I have plenty) for the back, along with this cute black and white print -- Nana left me a whole bolt, so it appears frequently in my work. To be honest, I didn't give much thought to the binding -- I had plenty of this blue floral and I think it turned out fine.
I like it, but it didn't actually turn out the way I thought it would. When you look at it up close, the pluses don't really show up very well. I think the fabrics I chose didn't have saturated enough color. Interestingly, when you see it in a photo from a distance, the design is much more apparent. As the quilt was coming together I started thinking about how I would do it differently -- I am already about halfway through version #2! (Like I said, I have A LOT of extra squares.)
Fortunately, I feel about quilts kind of like I feel about pizza -- there is good pizza and better pizza and really awesome pizza, but I'm not sure I've ever had bad pizza. With quilts, I think if you use pretty fabrics and cut and sew them carefully, the result will look nice, even if it doesn't end up looking like you wanted it to. Stay tuned for Take Two!
