The Wild & Free Plus Quilt

In the fall of 2014, Maureen Cracknell was releasing her first collecting of fabric called Wild & Free and I just Had. To. Have. It!!

And then it sat and sat and sat on my shelf because it was just so beautiful and while I knew it was destined to be a quilt, I couldn't settle on a quilt pattern for it.  Finally, in January of this year, I decided to just stop over thinking it all ready and go with something simple that would let the fabric truly shine.  I ended up going with a simple plus quilt design which now that the quilt is finished I think was the perfect choice.  As I was cutting up the fabric, I realized that there was enough for a queen sized quilt if I added in some coordinating blue, red and yellow solids! Yay! My bed was in need of a new quilt (well not according to my husband but ehh, too bad ;) ).

I did have to order more of the yellow flower print in the line to use for the binding and I'm glad it did because it tied beautifully with the front and back of the quilt.  My husband was kind is surprised that I went with yellow since I'm not much of a fan of yellow, but this yellow reminds me so much of golden sunshine that I love it.

And yes, I backed the quilt all in a Cotton & Steel Arrows in Navy print. That I had in my stash. That I still have a few yards left over of.  Hey, when you love a fabric print, you might as well buy 10 yards of it just to have around just in case.  He he Please tell me I'm not the only one to do this!

I quilted this one on my new Juki TL2000Qi and oh my goodness! It was a dream to quilt!  I've only made one other queen sized quilt before and I quilted it on my tiny Baby Lock BL9 which was definitely a work out! And almost made me vow never to make a queen quilt again!  But quilting a queen sized quilt on my Juki was amazing! So much room to maneuver the quilt! And gorgeous even straight lines of quilting produced by my Juki!  I seriously can't rave enough about my new sewing backing (which I do quite a bit over on Instagram...).

I finished it up last night, washed it this morning (oh yummy, fresh from the dryer crinklyness!), and the sun, kids and husband were all cooperating so I could get photos of this quilt this afternoon! Which is no small task! A ladder and some tall trees were definitely involved.

And now, it's going to live on my bed where I get to enjoy it every day!