X and + Quilt

Everyone is on the X and + Quilt bandwagon these days it seems! I actually started mine a year ago, but just finished it in May. My dear friend Ariane turned 50 and this quilt was for her.

 She loves orange. It's her favorite color! The fabric is from the Moda "Comma" line from last year (or was it the year before...). It's all punctuation marks, so it was fun to make a quilt that is X's and +'s with punctuation mark fabric!

This quilt is double sided! I actually started out with this side, which is a Zen Chic pattern for Moda called Card Trick, I think. I instagrammed this in March of 2013 saying I wasn't sure if I liked it and it might become a backing. And that's exactly what happened.

This is the "front" but really they are both stand alone quilt tops! This is the X and + pattern. This is also a Zen Chic pattern from Moda, but I found a free tutorial for the block here if you are interested. Apparently the block can be dated back to 1938!

Modern fabrics with a traditional pattern. That's how I like to quilt - bridging old and new.

And this was my favorite moment of handing the quilt over. Several of the ladies from the church swarmed as soon as we unfolded the quilt!

I love that so many young people are enjoying quilting and that we can all share a love for fabric and design even when our color and pattern choices are so wildly different than "traditional" quilting. I guess I'm not really a modern quilter. I'm not into improve, or crazy curves or any of that artsy stuff. But I'm not traditional either. I can't stand Thimbleberries or Civil War reproduction fabrics! (Sorry!) But somewhere in the middle is a happy place where I can combine modern fabrics with traditional quilt designs and be happy.