I'm making a small quilt for our church's Vacation Bible School. The theme this summer is Son Surf Beach. This is what I've laid out so far below. The blue material has beachy stuff all over it and there's supposed to be a cross visible. Any suggestions or is it okay?

Looks good to me. The cross shows good and the colors are very surfy. :thumbup:

Are you leaving the blocks plain? If you are, maybe the kids could sign them with a pigma pen, or draw something like what represents Jesus to them or something like that.
You could even find a "religious" fabric and have them help make the quilt by cutting out the images and applique them to blocks. I think that would work even if the quilt was "finished" already.

It's only my opinion, but I think I would shorten the crossarms of the cross by one block on each side. (Replace them with orange blocks.) What do you think?

Ah, so the cross floats?

Or, make the corners orange (instead of blue) so it doesn't take away from the cross shape.

And then you can border it anyway you want.

But I think we're both seeing the same thing.

I didn't have enough orange blocks to put in the corner. I could put yellow blocks there and then shorten the arms. I'm planning to use a tan backing (represent sand) and white binding.

Here is what that would look like. I will probably SITD down the rows and columns. I don't do FMQ yet.

how do you plan to quilt it

The cross is totally the focus now!

pretty!

I wouldn't SITD in the cross, but around it.

And then I would echo that shape every inch or two, until it's all done.

You could echo the cross inside on the blue if you want.

But if you just do the grid of blocks, it kinda negates everything you did to get that pattern, and it's back to...well, a bunch of squares.

You could do it with a straight stitch, or a wavy stitch - (on a Bernina it's stitch #4). It's just as easy to use as a straight stitch, but it give a lot of texture to all that flat space.
See the picture below.

I use it all the time (as I, too, have no FMQ skills). ;-)

Find a great variegated thread with oranges/blues, and I think it would be FABULOUS!
Take a look at M36 (click on it and it enlarges to the right).
http://www.valdani.com/product_details/2

And not that you have to buy new thread, but you can see how much more interesting it could make the quilt.