Cross Purposes in Make Modern

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A new issue of Make Modern magazine is out now, including my Cross Purposes quilt! There's so much fun diagonal movement in this baby quilt!

When Paul and I went to a local trail to take these pictures back in September, I already had the pattern written and the diagrams for it created. This is a square quilt, so it's not immediately obvious that there is a top side, but if you look at the diagonal lines, they're different going from bottom right to top left and from bottom left to top right. It's not like looking at it one way would be wrong, just that I needed the pictures to match the way the diagonal lines went in the pattern. Of course, I completely forgot about that while we were out taking pictures. It wasn't until we were home and I was editing the pictures that I realized the quilt was rotated 90° from the pattern. Sigh. My first thought was that we'd need to go out and take new pictures, but a few minutes later, I realized that all I needed to do was rotate the diagrams in the pattern and then they'd match 😆 Problem solved!

I used Northcott Chroma fabrics, with Colorworks white for the background. Blender fabrics are my favourite, and I love the variation in colour in the Chroma fabrics.

I originally designed Cross Purposes during the 2024 Stash Artists BOM. Each month of 2024, I shared a block with members, along with a few different quilt designs using the block, and the Crossing block was one of the blocks. In Cross Purposes, I paired it with a four patch as the alternating block. Actually, 8 Point Meadow, which was in the previous issue of Make Modern, was also designed for the same reason. There may be a couple of other designs in that folder just waiting for their turn to be made!

I love that the Crossing block is designed so that the lines don't match up at the corners. You don't have to worry about matching those points!

I used one of my (many) off-cuts of Warm and Natural batting for this baby quilt. Most of my batting scraps are too small to make piecing them together into bigger battings practical, but this one was the perfect size without needing to be pieced. And don't worry, I'll be doing a Mini of the Month series with the Stash Artists members in 2026, so I'll still be using those smaller batting scraps!

I quilted it with my go-to double loop design using Aurifil 50 wt 2021. I love the extra movement the curvy quilting gives the straight lines of the piecing.

I debated between the light teal and the purple for the binding, but in the end the purple won out. The biggest reason the purple won was that I used the light teal as the backing and I wanted the binding to show on the back, too.

Our trail doesn't look much like this now. We've had a lot of wind the past few weeks, so all the trees are bare. That means there's a lot less colour, but it also opens up the view to the water in places. 

If you want to make your own Cross Purposes baby quilt (or any of the other fabulous quilts in this issue), get your copy of Make Modern issue 67 here. Or subscribe and get a new issue full of great patterns and articles every other month!

Scrappy Triangles Baby Quilt

Welcome to another TGIFF party! In case you didn't know, TGIFF stands for Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday, but for this week I might need to add an extra F for the word finally! 

In May of 2022, I wrote a blog post that started, "Way back in 2011 I bought the November/December issue of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine and it had the pattern for this gorgeous scrappy quilt called Scrappy Triangles, designed by Jean Nolte." I then went on to describe where I was with my Scrappy Triangles quilt and that I had decided to make 2 baby quilts instead of a throw size like in the magazine. Well, here I am, 3 years after that post, and 14(!) years after I started cutting squares for the HSTs, and I finally have a finished Scrappy Triangles baby quilt 🎉🎉🎉 

Sometime in the early part of this year, I basted this quilt together at the same time I basted another quilt (though I can't remember which one), with the intention of quilting it soon after. Obviously that didn't happen! It has been sitting on the bed in the sewing room, just patiently waiting.

When it came time to write my project list for WIPS-B-GONE, I put this quilt right at the top of the list. When the challenge started, I was piecing the blocks for the cover quilt for the next Stash Artists pattern (which releases to members on Monday). I only have one sewing machine, and I don't like to be constantly switching back and forth between having it set up for piecing and for free motion quilting, so this quilt waited until I was ready to start quilting the Stash Artists quilt.

Once that quilt was basted and ready for quilting, it was time to bring this quilt out, too. I started each quilting session with 10-20 minutes of this double-loop that I love quilting so much. I used Aurifil 2600 because it's works well with all the different colours in the fabrics.

After those 10-20 minutes, I switched thread and worked on the Stash Artists quilt for the rest of the time I had for quilting. The next day, I switched back to the 2600 thread and did the same thing. It didn't take many days like that to finish quilting the baby quilt! Why had I put it off for so long?

Since this quilt already has every possible colour in it, I dug into my box of scrap binding pieces and just pulled out all the longest pieces. I had way more than I needed, so I removed some of them, then sewed the rest together. Even after removing some of the strips from the pile, the ones I sewed together were still way more than I needed. Oh well, now there's a good long strip already pieced for the next scrap quilt binding.

This quilt looks so much better finished than it did when it was full of basting pins! The WIPS-B-GONE challenge worked its magic for another one of my projects that has been sitting around way too long.

We won't talk about the second Scrappy Triangles baby quilt that is still just a top...

That's my finish this week! What have you finished recently? Link it up below and be sure to visit some of the other links to celebrate their finishes 😊

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Bright Side Up Mini Quilt

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on a link. This does not affect the price you pay.

Welcome to this week's TGIFF party! I've been waiting to share this mini quilt for a long time. 

A few months ago, Monika of Penny Spool Quilts messaged me to say she was thinking about starting a subscription box that would feature Canadian quilt pattern designers and Canadian fabrics. When she asked if I'd be interested in being featured, I couldn't say yes fast enough! 

I'm incredibly honoured to have been the featured designer in the first Quilt the North box! Check out this Instagram reel if you'd like to see everything that was in the first Quilt the North box, which was sent out in September. My box got stuck in the mail thanks to the Canada Post strike, but it finally arrived last week. Isn't Maple the Moose adorable?

Now that the boxes have all been received, I can finally share my Bright Side Up mini quilt. Aren't these bright colours fabulous?

Because the box includes all the fabrics needed to make the project, the pattern has to be for a small project (think mini quilt, bag, cushion, etc) and can't require too many different fabrics. My EQ8 is full of quilts and blocks I want to make someday, so I went browsing through that to see if I had anything that would fit. As has happened many times before, I found myself staring at this quilt I designed several years ago. I love it, but every time I look at it I wonder, "Do I really want to make that many flying geese?" 

It wasn't a candidate for the box anyway, since it's a throw size quilt, so I was about to move on and keep looking when I realized that just one block would make an excellent 20" square mini quilt. Ooooh, I liked that!

Then I had to choose fabrics from Northcott. No hardship there, Northcott's COLORWORKS solids are my favourites and the ones I use most often, anyway. Picking what colours to use was tough, though! I kept mocking up the block in different colour combinations in EQ8, and I loved every variation. Eventually I had to make myself stop playing and just choose 😂

The winning combination is COLORWORKS Dandy Yellow, Admiral, Patriot Blue, Love Potion and Toscana Ebony. I used COLORWORKS black for the background for mine, but it wasn't available when Monika ordered the fabrics for the box, so we substituted the Toscana. I love Toscana fabrics, too!

Though I'm not keen on making as many flying geese as I would need for a throw size quilt, I do like making flying geese using the 4-at-a-time, no waste method. I'd love to know who looked at 5 squares of fabric and thought, "If we sew them like this, cut them like that, then sew like this, and cut like that, we'll have 4 flying geese." My brain does not work that way, so I'm glad hers did, whoever she was! It's kind of like when I think about all the steps involved in getting from cacao beans to the chocolate we eat...who figured out that process?

I really love designs that take common units, like flying geese, and turn them into fun quilts. That's exactly what Bright Side Up is - classic units that come together to make something that looks more complicated than it is. I love quilt photography sessions at the beach, too 😍

Most of the time, when I'm working on a mini quilt, I'm going to do some custom quilting. Though I've moved away from doing that on larger quilts because of all the time it takes, I love doing it on mini quilts! As always, I used Aurifil 50 wt for all the quilting, which was done on my Janome 6700 domestic machine.

I started with the continuous lines in the pink flying geese. That's one of my favourite designs to quilt in triangles because it's quick and it doesn't have to be perfect to look good.

I did teardrop flowers in the blue flying geese (what would you call this design??). This is another design that doesn't have to be perfect to look good, plus you can do any size teardrops and add as many as you need to fill the triangles.

Then I did dense back and forth lines in the yellow star points. I love the texture that comes from quilting simple back and forth lines!

I probably spent the most time trying to decide on a design for the blue squares. I ended up choosing to quilt diamonds in the center of each square with straight(ish) lines. They're nowhere near perfect, but that's pretty much a theme in my quilting, so it's all good.

Once all the bright coloured sections were quilted, I did a dense stipple in the background. Black thread on black fabric is never easy! There were several times I quilted over lines I had already done before I couldn't see the thread. While that's technically a no-no for stippling, I don't think anyone will ever notice or care.

I'm obsessed with how the quilting looks on the back!! All that texture is just amazing and the black thread shows up much better on this side.

I've seen two finished Bright Side Up quilt tops so far, which is always fun. I'm really looking forward to seeing how people quilt their mini quilts. Even though we're all using the same fabrics, they'll still look different depending on how they're quilted.

If you want to meet new Canadian quilt pattern designers, sign up for the Quilt the North subscription box! The next box ships out in December, featuring a Nova Scotia designer.

That's my finish 😊 What have you finished recently? Link it up below, then visit some of the other links to celebrate their finish, too.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter