Since the meeting was last night, I can finally show my habitat quilt!  The Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild was graciously given some of Jay McCarroll’s Habitat collection and challenged to use these and solids only to create a quilt.  There were so many amazing quilts made, and I have seen many many more online from other quilt guilds.  This line really made me step outside my comfort zone, and I had fun making this quilt!

I drew my inspiration from here.   Rossie’s quilt is so pretty, and the image stuck in my brain for a while.  I knew I wanted to make something like it.  So, when I got my hands on Jay McCarroll’s fabrics and saw the large bold prints,  I thought that this type of quilt would be a great way to show off those prints.  I decided to make mine a little different than Rossie’s quilt, and make mine with sharper angles in the plus signs, following the sharp angles in the fabric itself.  And so, that is how I came up with this quilt.

That blue pixelated fabric (with the red plus in it) is my favorite of his designs.

Here is a close up of the quilting.  I wanted to attempt a complex straight line quilting pattern, but I didn’t want the hassle of using straight line quilting techniques.  So, I cheated.

Using tape as my guide, I used free motion quilting to quilt around the design I had laid out with the tape.  I also used free motion quilting to add an additional line between the taped lines.   Below is a grainy photo to show free motion quilting around the taped lines.

It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and it was WAY faster than straight line quilting.

One final picture of the quilt over my son.

He thinks quilts were made to keep him warm on the trampoline.  :)

I finished this quilt in time to join Candi’s Quilt Challenge of the month/UFO finishing challenge and won this beautiful Kona snow jelly roll.  Thanks Candi!