Positive Hope: A Finished Quilt

I recently found out that one of my husband's cousins was diagnosed with cancer.  I wanted to make her a quilt, so I asked her what her favorite color was.  Turns out she loves pink!  I wanted to finish it before she starts chemo therapy, so I picked one of my favorite easy patterns.

This is a plus quilt made from sixteen quarter yard cuts of fabric.  Each quarter yard is then cut down to five eight inch squares, put on my design wall, and sewn into a quilt top.  That took me about five hours.

The fabrics I used are a mix of what I could find at my LQS including: Bandanna, Pam Kitty Garden, Summer Song 2, Timeless Treasures Sketch, and others.  I love how they all play together.  I decided to add aqua as an accent color, to break up the pink a little.  I was told that aqua is a very healing color.  :) So I chose four dark pink, five medium pink, four light pink, and three aqua fabrics.

The hardest part was deciding how I wanted to quilt it.  I ended up deciding to quilt with a large stipple and include simple flowers.  This design came from Christina Cameli's first book, First Steps to Free Motion Quilting.  The basting and quilting (on my Tiara) took less than three hours.

To keep the flowers evenly spaced, I decided to quilt one in each 7.5 inch square.  It looks so cute on the minky back.  (My boys were adamant that it NEEDED minky.)

Then I added the binding by machine which took a little over an hour.

I had a finished quilt in about 9 hours.  Of course that was broken up over a period of five days. (Quilting time is harder to find in the summer with all of our trips to the library and other fun places.)

I was going to call it "Positively Pink," but my husband wanted a more meaningful quilt name.  Together we decided to call it "Positive Hope."  I hope it brings his sweet cousin comfort during this difficult time.  

All of my five petal flowers are lopsided, but I think that is part of the charm.

The minky backing was hard to photograph.  It is a little too bright outside...

And then I had helpers testing it out inside.

I'm not the only one who likes the back more than the top.

Wolfie and Coconut even needed their own picture.  LOL.

Quilt Stats #143
Quilt Name:  Positive Hope
Pattern: Plus quilt from 8 inch squares
Fabrics Used: Bandanna, Pam Kitty Garden, Summer Song 2, Sketch, and more
Amount Used: 7 yards
Batting:  Hobbs 80/20
Size:  About 60 x 75
Date Finished: June 2015
What I learned:

• When your backing is the same width as what your finished quilt top will be, it is okay to sew squares together with a generous quarter inch seam.  

I hope to deliver this quilt to her this weekend.  

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar. Check them out to see what other quilters are up to.  :)