Cross and Crown anyone???

If anyone every asks you "What is Tia Curtis's Favorite quilt block?" you can tell them it is the Cross and Crown. I love it as a Barn quilt.

I love it as a simple quilt block

So what the heck…why not make it into a massive bed sized quilt? Did you know I have never made a quilt just for my bed? Nope. Not once. Now I do have a princess and the pea sized stack of quilts on my bed (all are about 70 inches square) so my husband and I fight over them and kick them off and snatch them off one another during the course of the night…but it was time for a bed sized quilt. I guess I arrived at this conclusion from quilting many many many other ladies bed sized quilts. People actually make quilts for their beds? What? Why?

I have had this puppy assembled for months, and finally decided to quilt it when I got my Lady June back from the shop.

I tossed it up on the bed as soon as I trimmed it. Yes, we are totally sleeping under it and it is not bound. I hate binding quilts…but this one I NEED to bind and soon. Lots and lots of straight line quilting MUST be bound. Seriously….soon.

So, it is not as intuitive as you would think to take a simple block and blow it up into a massive bed sized quilt. Maybe it was the linen…maybe it was the bias…maybe it was human error (that is my vote)  but in the end it was fine. I did try something I have been very excited to try. I quilted zillions of pieces of advice I have received over the years. I quilted quotes all over the aqua parts of this quilt. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the texture it created.

My handwriting is so much better when quilted! But it is crazy hard to read with this blending thread. This was really just a test piece, next time I will use contrasting thread!

All the fabric used in this quilt is linen that I dyed myself. I used 2 layers of batting (quilters dream cotton in deluxe loft and quilters dream batting in Wool) to really give the quilting a great definition (the pictures don't really show the pretty quilting. Sorry it was a super dreary day. And as a nod to going green I used one of our old flat sheets as the backing. Of course this will drive me bonkers next time I try to make the bed.

Have the best evening ever and happy quilting!
Tia Curtis