Checkered Crossing – Paintbrush Studios
I am so excited to share with you today my latest quilt pattern release for 2026, called Checkered Crossing! If you've been following along with my quilt patterns, you'll know that this year I've been designing to keep the fabric count under six, and you'll see that reflected here too. This one uses just five total colors, and I actually left out the black that's shown up in a lot of my other modern quilt patterns this year. The fun part about this pattern is that it's jelly roll friendly, so keep reading to learn more about the cover quilt — and stay tuned, because a dedicated jelly roll quilt pattern version is coming to the blog in the next few weeks!
Checkered Crossing is exactly the kind of quilt pattern I love designing: bold, graphic, and quick to piece without sacrificing that "wow, how did you make that" look. It's the newest addition to a growing collection of modern quilt patterns built around clean geometry and a limited color palette, and I think it might be one of my favorites yet.
Fabrics for the Quilt Top
For the rest of the cover quilt collection I've been working on, I used Paintbrush Studios' Painter's Palette line in White, Artisan, Hot Pink, Carrot, and Lemon Ice. When I was selecting these colors, I wanted the palette to truly reflect my love of color and my personality as a designer. I'm drawn to bright, cheerful tones when I'm designing — they pop right off the screen or the page, and there's something so fun about seeing a bold color combination come together. It's not necessarily how I'd decorate my own home, but for this collection, these shades just scream summertime fun.
Choosing fabric is honestly one of my favorite parts of the design process. I love being able to build a modern quilt pattern collection around a cohesive palette, and Painter's Palette solids are a dream to work with for this kind of design — they're crisp, consistent, and the colors read true whether you're piecing scrappy or precise.
The Block Design
Believe it or not, this quilt is made up of just two blocks: a Cross block and a 36-Patch block. Together they create this fun movement across the quilt top, along with a great big dose of checkerboard energy (in the best way). Where the 36-Patch blocks meet up with the corner Cross blocks, you get either a bold checkered-patch look or a soft white, blue, and Lemon Ice transparency effect, depending on how the light and colors interact. It's a little bit of an optical illusion, and I love that about it.
Overall, I've been having so much fun playing with checkerboard elements in my quilt patterns this year, and it's been especially fun figuring out how to make this one jelly roll friendly. If you love the look of a scrappy, high-contrast checkerboard quilt but don't love cutting a hundred tiny squares from yardage, a jelly roll makes this build so much faster. Pre-cut 2.5" strips take a lot of the fussy cutting out of the equation, which means more time at the machine and less time at the cutting mat. That's really the heart of why I design the way I do: modern quilt patterns that look intricate but come together quickly, especially when you lean on precuts like a jelly roll.
I'll be sharing the full jelly roll version of Checkered Crossing here on the blog soon, with yardage and strip requirements laid out so you can decide which build works best for your stash.
Quilting
Since there's already so much going on visually in the quilt top, I wanted to keep the quilting design classic and simple while still adding a bit of extra texture. I went with the Wishbone design from Longarm League, which I got as a free pantograph for being a member. If you're interested in joining Longarm League, I highly recommend it — it's a fantastic resource for anyone looking to get into longarm quilting as a business. I'll drop my link here; it is an affiliate link, so I want to be upfront about that, but it's a genuinely fabulous resource and a great community of fellow quilters. If you have questions about longarm quilting, pantograph design, or just want to talk shop, it's a great place to jump in and make friends who understand what it's like to work in a wonderfully solitary profession :).
Quilting design is honestly where a lot of the personality of a finished quilt comes from, even more than the piecing sometimes. A simple, all-over pantograph like Wishbone lets the piecing take center stage on a busy top like this one, while still adding enough texture that the quilt has real dimension and drape once it's off the frame.
Binding and Backing
For the binding, I kept the black binding running consistently through this entire collection, and since there's no black in the quilt top itself here, it gives this piece a beautiful framing element — kind of like putting a period at the end of the whole design. It grounds all that bright color and gives your eye a clean place to land.
For the backing, I used a Brush Strokes print, which is a 108" wide quilting cotton. It's such a fun way to add a bold print to the back of the quilt, especially with a top this clean and graphic. I love pairing a busy, wide-format backing with a simpler pieced top — it means less piecing for the back (since it's long enough to avoid seaming most quilt sizes), and it adds a whole extra layer of personality that only the quilt owner really gets to enjoy.
Bringing It All Together: Piecing, Quilting, and Finishing
One of the things I hear from quilters again and again is that piecing the top is often the "fun part," but quilting and finishing can feel like the intimidating part — especially on a large quilt. That's actually a big part of why I offer longarm quilting services alongside my pattern designs. I know firsthand what it's like to finish a top you're proud of and then feel unsure about how to quilt and bind it in a way that does the piecing justice.
If that's you, I'd love to help. I offer longarm quilting services for hire here at Modern Textiles, including custom edge-to-edge quilting, pantograph designs (like the Wishbone design featured on this very quilt), and binding. I also offer mail-in longarm quilting services, so if you don't have a local longarm quilter or you just love the pantograph options I offer, you can ship your top to me and I'll take care of the quilting and binding from start to finish. It's a great option whether you're local to central Minnesota or halfway across the country.
Whether you're piecing a quick jelly-roll-friendly design like Checkered Crossing or working through a more complex modern quilt pattern, having a reliable longarm quilting partner can make all the difference in how a finished quilt turns out — and how much you actually enjoy the process of getting there.
What's Next
I'll be back on the blog soon with the full jelly roll quilt pattern build of Checkered Crossing, complete with strip counts and yardage so you can decide which version fits your project best. In the meantime, I'd love to see your version of this pattern if you decide to make it — tag me or send me a photo, I genuinely love seeing how everyone's color choices change the whole feel of a design.
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Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today, and as always, happy quilting!
