Simple Blue and White Patchwork Quilt

Who said a quilt has to be intricate or time-consuming to make!?

Not me!  I love simple patchwork!

I had some blues leftover from a few projects recently

so I decided to cut them into 3 1/2" squares for a simple lap-size quilt. 

I did a 17 x 21 block layout, so this quilt finished at 51" x 63".
I think it would be perfect for a little boy.

Jen Ostler in Highland, UT. quilted it for me with this panto called Ripple.  I've used that panto before and think it adds some nice movement to a very "square" quilt.  I like that it's a play off the blues/water, too!  Do you see the little star (below) that Jen quilted into it?  Such a fun, signature move that she does on all of her quilts.  Makes for a fun game of hide and seek.

The label is from Ever Emblem. I've been getting labels from them for years!  I get the 2" cotton, fold-over, sew-in labels.  If you want to get some for yourself, you will just have to pick one of their basic cotton labels and customize it from there.  I machine stitch my binding down around it because it's hard to hand stitch through it (but then I usually hand stitch the rest of my binding down to the back of my quilt).

I had a partial bolt of this cream and navy plaid fabric in my stash.  It felt good to use some of it in the patchwork and for the back of the quilt.  I don't think I've used a plaid for an alternate/background fabric before, but I thought it was kind of fun in this particular project.  Since everything is going the same direction (as in, there aren't any triangles that would cause the plaid to be on-point in some places) it was definitely a good project for that!  I had someone ask me if it was hard to get all of the lines straight and I honestly didn't even pay attention to that.  I just cut it like I normally would.  It's generally pretty straight but I think a little imperfection adds some charm!  Would it bug you if the plaid wasn't perfectly straight?

I hope this inspires you to go simple and not worry about perfection!

Happy quilting friends!