Plus Up

by Emmely Treffers

  • Finished Size: 12" x 12"
  • Skill Level: Confident Beginner
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We challenged six MQG members to design a quilt block using the following parameters:

  • Base the design on a basic shape (e.g. square, triangle, circle, hexagon, and others)
  • Have it measure 12 ½” x 12 ½” unfinished
  • Use a specific color palette

Plus Up, designed by Emmely Treffers, reimagines the plus shape. 

“Some of the things I love in modern quilts are asymmetry and changes in scale. To modernize the plus sign, I wanted to combine these two concepts and ended up with a nested set of growing plusses. When the Plus Up block is set in a background fabric, it is possible to play with negative space in or around the plusses to add another modern element to the block.”

About the Contributor

Emmely has a PhD in molecular virology and enjoys discovering how virus and host proteins interact inside an infected cell. She started sewing bags and clothing in 2009 and made her first quilt in 2012. She learned to quilt from blogs, quilt books, and YouTube tutorial videos. For Emmely, the best parts of quilting are the initial quilt design phase and figuring out how to make that design come to life. Inspiration comes from many places; she often starts with a set of colors, a certain shape, or a specific concept such as transparency or balance. When she realized that writing quilt pattern instructions was not that much different from writing protocols for lab experiments, she started to write quilt patterns for some of her designs. Emmely’s quilts have been juried into QuiltCon Together (2021) and QuiltCon (2024), and several quilts have been displayed at unjuried shows in the Netherlands and France. Emmely is an active member of the Dutch Modern Quilt Guild and Quiltersgilde. She lives in the Netherlands with her husband and two daughters.