Checkerboard Cross quilt: A finish!

I've got another fun finish for you! This time, it's the February quilt for the Emerge circle of do.Good Stitches, and I'm calling it the Checkerboard Cross quilt.

As I talked about last week, I had some big issues getting this quilt to come together. You can read all about it in this post, but suffice it to say that I couldn't figure out a layout that worked with the styles and colors of the blocks. That is, at least, until I posted about it on IG, and a lovely commenter suggested a checkerboard design.

I decided to place the two colors on opposite "dueling" sides because interspersing them just didn't work. When I first requested these blocks from my beemates, I had a very different idea about how this quilt was going to turn out, but I'm still pretty pleased with the final result. (The original post includes all the details on the block design, including a tutorial for the blocks with the scrappy backgrounds.)

I'm also quite smitten with the crazy pieced backing. I incorporated the four blocks that didn't fit into the front and then surrounded them with a sea of blue and yellow fabrics. Those Lizzy House characters peeking out in the middle are my very favorite.

I chose a simple quilting pattern, quilting 1/4" on each side of the outside of the blocks and 1/4" to the outside of the crosses. I used white Aurifil thread so it would blend into the solids used. I bound it in Grid Bits in Blueberry from Carolyn Friedlander's Carkai collection because the blue and yellow combo in the print matched perfectly. 

 

 

All in all, it's a fun quilt for a little kid or teenager (like the others I quilt for do.Good Stitches, this one will be donated to the local chapter of Project Linus).