Cross Quilting Pattern (Tutorial)

I've been making my son a twin-sized quilt since he was born 2 1/2 years ago.  Needless to say, it's been in the "unfinished projects" pile for a while now.  I kept delaying quilting, because I couldn't find a pattern that I liked.  I wanted this quilt to look really nice, but I also wanted to be able to quilt it myself with a walking foot.  After months of searching, I finally found this traditional quilting pattern in a book.  It's one of those patterns that looks really cool and geometric, but is actually simple to do--perfect!

The only problem is apparently I did not write down the name of the book or the pattern, and now I can't remember either because I'm a scatterbrain sometimes.  If you know please share in a comment!  It has the word "cross" in it, that's all I remember...

This pattern is basically just diagonal lines, so first you may want to check out How to Quilt Diagonal Lines. 

What you need:

• Finished quilt top
• Fabric washable pencil
• Batting and Backing for your quilt
• Basting pins
• Thread to match quilt top (I use Gutermann 100% cotton)
• Walking foot

Let's get quilting:
1.  For this pattern, it was easier to mark the quilt before basting.  With your fabric pencil, mark a large "X" across the whole quilt top, forming four quadrants.  Then fill in diagonal lines about every 2".  The lines point a different direction in each quadrant, which is what makes this pattern look complex.

 It's a lot easier to see the lines on the back of my finished quilt:

1.  Draw an X    2.Draw lines 2" apart

As you can see after quilting, I drew my "X" so that the diagonal lines don't line up with my patchwork.  I think it was easier to quilt this way (and it's not as obvious if I made a little mistake when quilting).

2.  Baste your quilt.  (See How to Baste a Quilt).  As you can see from my ugly basting stitches, I used to thread-baste.  Nowadays, I would pin-baste.

3.  To quilt a twin-sized quilt, you roll up fabric on the right under the arm of your sewing machine.  Make sure the rest of the quilt is supported by your sewing table, or there will be too much drag to sew smoothly.

4.  I quilted this pattern in the same order that I marked it.  First, I quilted the large X.  Then I did the diagonals every 2".  Start each diagonal on the center X as shown in Step 1 above.  I quilted one quadrant at a time, filling in all the diagonals before moving on to the next quadrant.

Start each line with a few small backstitches to secure, then quilt to the end.  I backstitched at the end, too, but it's not really necessary because it will be secured with the binding.

It was actually very simple quilting, just a straight line every 2".  But when it's all done, it looks complex, geometric, and awesome!

 I used a light blue, solid backing that really highlighted my quilting pattern.  I spent a lot of time on this, I want to be able to see it!

Finished!  Now, on to binding...
-Lily