Geo Plus Quilt

Sometimes the exact right quilt pattern falls into your lap at the exact right time.  I needed a quilt for a baby shower and nothing I came up with felt quite right.  I considered gifting the Rainbow I-Spy quilt, but it's a favorite at our house right now and I didn't want to part with it.  Then I got an email.  An email with a bonus pattern from Make Modern Magazine, the Geo Plus quilt (affiliate links).  I knew it was the right one as soon as I saw it, a fact that was confirmed when I saw that it was written as a baby-sized quilt!

My friend and her husband are both huge college sports fans - their "save the date" and baby announcement cards both featured their alma maters!  Luckily the two schools, Michigan and Notre Dame, have a similar color scheme so I decided to use that as the theme for my quilt.

I bought Kona Storm for the background color and then pulled every single yellow that I have, ranging from light to bright to golden.  I didn't want the quilt to actually be a Michigan/Notre Dame quilt; the school colors were just my inspiration.  The four big pluses are paper-pieced and I jumped right in and made one of those first.

After that, I cut the filler blocks and laid it out on floor so I could play "fill in the blank".  The instructions called for the smaller blocks to be paper-pieced as well, but I just measured the paper-piecing templates and then pieced them traditionally.  Sometimes I struggle with the balance of colors in a scrappy top, but because these were all shades of yellow I didn't have that problem.

The entire top came together quickly.  I used a new Alison Glass print, Diatom in Canary, on the back and straight-line quilted it in navy (the lines are about an inch apart).

Because I used a yellow print on the back I decided to keep it simple and just use the same Kona Storm to bind the quilt.  Kona is a little thicker than traditional quilting cotton, but you can't tell in the final result.

This was put together in about two weeks - a fast and fun finish for the new baby!  It was gifted at a baby shower last weekend and the mom said "Oooh!  Michigan" before she even completely pulled it out of the gift bag so I was successful in my theme!