Machine Quilting My Colorful Chaos Quilt

After a hiatus of entering quilt shows the last couple years, I just got the exciting news that Colorful Chaos was juried into the international quilt show in Paducah, KY!! There’s no pattern for this quilt because it’s part of my renewed push to make new and exciting experimental work that pushes me out of my comfort zone. I’m thrilled with how it turn out. Read more about it below….

Colorful Chaos, Front and Back
It will be hanging at the American Quilter’s Society Show April 23-26, 2025.

In this post I thought I would share more about my machine quilting process and how I decided to quilt it. I hope you enjoy all the quilty eye candy!

Step 1 – Make a Quilting Plan

Before I begin quilting, I always start off with a quilting plan. I printed off a few color copies of my finished quilt top and then sketched out several different possibilities. These were simple pics I took from my phone and printed on a regular piece of paper. I wanted to emphasize the circles with the quilting and then fill in the other areas with some fun, geometric designs. This is just a roadmap, and I usually change it up a little when I get to the actual quilt.

I always make a quilting plan before quilting, and it’s totally ok to deviate from the plan!

Step 2 – Choose Thread Colors

For most of my quilts, I usually just choose 1 or 2 thread colors, and I always use the same thread in the bobbin. For this colorful quilt, however, I wanted to quilt each colorful section with a matching thread color.

Click here to get my favorite Aurifil thread groups in neutrals, colors, or variegated.

I chose 12 different thread colors from my Piece & Quilt Neutrals and Colors collections.

Step 3 – Quilt Your Heart Out

When I’m doing custom quilting, I take my time and focus on one area at a time. For this quilt I did some light stitching in the ditch between sections to anchor or secure the quilt. Then I went to town with different motifs in each colored area.

Above is what it looks like when I’m scrunching and smooshing my quilt under the machine. I’m using my Christa Cabinet to hold the weight of the quilt and it’s a game changer for domestic machine quilting!

Below I’m using pieces of painters tape to help me quilt straight lines using my dual feed system, which performs the same function as a walking foot.

Straight lines are super versatile because they can be stitched at lots of different angles, and they always look great! My secret is to quilt them in an irregular pattern rather than trying to have an even amount of spacing between the lines.

I also used walking-foot style quilting to stitch spirals inside and outside of each inset circle. To jazz them up a bit, I then went back and free motion quilting pebbles in between each of the spirals. It was a fun challenge figuring out how to make that work, but I love trying new things with every quilt I make!

This year it’s been my goal to work on what I call my “runway” quilts in between other projects. These are quilts that are a bit more edgy and push the boundaries of what I can do. There’s no pattern for them so that frees me from the need to be able to replicate everything I do.

But just like runway fashions inspire colors and style you’ll see at your local department store, my experiments will show up in bits and pieces, such as this practice sample that I’ve added to my “Spirals and Swirls” machine quilting workshop:

Previous Blog Posts: Colorful Chaos in Progress

Part 1 – Making Soul-Fulfilling Work
Part 2 – Piecing Inset Circles
Part 3 – Improv Quilt Backing from Leftovers
Part 4 – Spray Basting Tutorial

I continued the rainbow colors around the edges with matching binding. I pieced the binding in sections and then added one section at a time, splicing the seams together roughly were the colors overlapped.

About This Quilt

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