When Sandra of mmmquilts announced a quilt-along for her Plus+ Playtime quilt, I knew I had to quilt along. It is such a fun, clever pattern of a string of pluses on one shadow plus, and looked simple enough to squeeze in between my other work-in-progress projects. Besides, Sandra is a lovely person – the best of quilt blog-land, and she has been such a great cheerleader throughout this QAL. And, she is dangling some carrots for a finish this week!
This is a small enough quilt that I could find several possibilities in my stash. I settled on a very simple combo – Kona oasis and Kona coal for the background – I had got a yard each two last year without any specific plan. They have this deep, saturated color and very attractive. I had a chunk of Blueberry Park fabric leftover after my Stalactites quilt (renamed, finished blog post to follow soon) and the Spiral Nova. The bright reds, oranges and yellows pops out over the calm and sedate oasis and coal backgrounds. I name this Citrus Plus – checkout the picture above with our orange tree in the background.
This quilt went so fast. I cut and pieced most of it in two or three sessions. Sandra had some neat ideas for quilting. My initial plan was to just do a simple meander in the background and some straight quilting in the pluses. I used a high loft polyester batting I had from long ago. I loaded it on my frame and the quilt seemed to have a mind of its own. By this point, I’d decided that the quilt will go on the blank wall above the fire place in our bedroom (Yes, we have a fire place in the bedroom in Texas and no, we’ve never used it :-).
Since this was going to be a wall quilt and not meant to cuddle under, I decided to do some heavy quilting – at least heavy by my standards.
I quilted with a ruler outlining each of the pluses and about one inch inside. The background is conveniently separated by the chains of pluses. For the top area, I just went with some tight swirls and pebbles.
For the second area I tried a chain of swirls from left to right and filled the rest of the area with more swirls and echoes. I love how this turned out.
For the third area I tried a large feather but that didn’t go very well and ended up looking like the slush leftover from hurricane Harvey :-). Lesson learned: stick with a plan, don’t just wing it while the machine is running.
I had run out of steam by the time I reached the bottom. I just went with a few wavy lines. Wavy lines, I’ve found, are the best texture you can get for very little effort and skill. Given that the background and shadow plus are about the same value with not much contrast, I thought it needed a bright binding to define the boundaries. 
Citrus Plus
54″X 54″
Fabric: Kona cotton Coal, Kona cotton Oasis, Blueberry Park by Karen Lewis (warm colors)
Batting: high loft polyester
Thread: Aurifil 2021 for piecing, Isacord Smoke and Isacord White for quilting
Linking up to Sandra’s linky party for Plus+Playtime Finishes.
Your finished quilt looks great! Really like the quilting too! Mine is not done yet; daughter is home and she takes priority!
I know that you have an ongoing love affair with Blueberry Park but I am impressed by how beautifully you use these fabrics. Lovely colors, gorgeous quilting and a fabulous finish. But I am so jealous – you have a swimming pool. As if the peach tree was not enough to make me jealous. I can just picture myself swimming in the cool blue water and eating a juicy peach. Darn it, it is not even my house!!!
Such a lovely quilt. The warm colours look wonderful against the dark background, and your quilting is gorgeous!!
-Soma
A beautiful finish. I love those bright colors against the background and the quilting is stunning. Great job.
Nice combination of color and background. And nice quilting. I so identified when you mentioned out-of-steam. Happens to me all the time near the end.
Such a lovely quilt! Those bright oranges and yellows make the whole thing shine, and the quilting is perfect. The swirly chain is absolutely beautiful! Congratulations!
Those bright colours really sing against your background, and your quilting is just beautiful
Vasudha, your quilting is just stunning! And perfect to enhance the motion of the twirling pluses! Isacord thread is terrific isn’t it? Nice sheen and feeds through the machine so well. I did that chain of swirls, Angela-style on my daughter Dayna’s graduation quilt, not as easy as it appears!! You did a phenomenal job. As for ‘winging it’ and (cough) “didn’t go very well”??? When I saw the finger-feathers I thought wow, that is so cool! You’ve made a new design IMHO. 😉 Thanks so much for making this quilt; it is such a rush and a gee whiz kind of feel to know that two of the participants have me quilt (thank you for saying it’s a clever design) hanging in their homes! 🙂
Your quilt is really lovely. The really like the way that you changed the quilting for the “plus” and the negative space.
Your choice of warm Blueberry Park on a dark background made for a striking quilt. The quilting is delightful!
I’m a tad jealous of you beautiful quilting, just lovely! I like you low contrasting backgrounds. Well done!