I recently finished making a fun yet chaotic quilt backing from leftovers of my colorful fabrics. I’m calling the quilt Colorful Chaos and it was a fun experiment in learning to piece inset circles. You can see the image of the front pinned to the design wall next to the backing.

This is my 3rd post in a series about making this quilt. It’s been wonderful to sew on between other “work” projects, without a strict deadline. Click below to read about parts 1 and 2, written before I finally designed on a name for this quilt:

Part 1 – Making Soul-Fulfilling Work
Part 2 – Piecing Inset Circles

Here’s a little bit about the process of making the pieced backing, which was just as much fun to make as the front! First of all, I gathered up misc. leftover scraps that didn’t make it to the front of the quilt. I had 3 circles left over after I cut them out of the quilt top and a bunch of low volume scraps that I used for the backgrounds of each circle.

For the pink unit, I pieced a background square with fabric missing from the middle since that would be cut away anyway. I cut a circular hole from the middle that was 1″ smaller than the pink circle. I very carefully pinned and sewed it around the pink colorful circle. (See part 2 above for a more detailed explanation of this process).

Then I repeated that a few times for the other colors I had, including more of the blue, plus a chunk of dark grey improv which didn’t end up working on the front. I also made way more low volume pieces that I needed, so I gathered up all these starter bits and pieces and threw them on my design wall to begin a secondary composition.

I put some blue painters tape on the design wall to set the boundaries for how big the backing needed to be. Once I decided on the placement of the circles, I started randomly filling in the gaps with low volume strips and rainbow colored strips, leftovers from my various fabric collections.

This part of the process gave me complete freedom to just play and see what happened. I had no real plan in mind which is half of the fun of improv piecing. I used both front and back of my various low-volume fabrics. My philosophy is that you paid for both sides of the fabric so you may as well use them!!

The hardest part about this type of piecing is keeping everything relatively square. I do what I call the “puzzle” method where I piece together sections at a time and make sure the sizes fit together before sewing. Sometimes that means trimming off a bit or adding onto another section, but it all works out in the end!

Here are a couple of my go-to improv piecing techniques: sewing together similar sized strips to create a band of color, making stair-step panels and filling them in with contrasting background fabrics; cutting half square triangles from improv patchwork and joining them with other colors.

I also get asked a lot how I sort my scraps. Rather than cutting them to size, I sort them all into bins by color. My bins fit into rolling drawers in my fabric storage shelving unit. Whenever they start overflowing, that tells me it’s time to start a new quilt, LOL!

If you’d love to stock up on fun rainbow fabrics along with some low volume neutrals – check out my current stock of fabrics I’ve designed at Shop.ChristaQuilts.com. It’s been fun to mix pieces from all of the various collections I’ve designed!

Stay tuned as I’ll be sharing a couple more posts, showing how I basted and machine quilted this colorful quilt!

Sometimes you may get tired of quilting smooth curving lines and you want to opt for something different, and maybe a little bit edgy. Well, this week’s video tutorial is the perfect fit! These are some of my go to designs for edge to edge quilting, and they always look great! Take a look below to watch:

Whenever I teach machine quilting workshops in person, I always remind my students that it’s important to practice stitching angular designs as well as curvy ones. You may find that one type is easier than the other so that’s useful information to have!

For this week’s bonus video, check out how I quilted jagged stipple from edge to edge on an actual real quilt. I had a blast making the 6th version of my Terrace Tiles quilt, this time from Dazzle Dots. Click play below to watch:

Click here to stock up on Dazzle Dots fabric, precuts or kits!

Learn from Me in Person

If you are enjoying this series and want to continue learning with me live and in person, be sure to check out my current travel schedule. I’m also happy to come teach in person at your group or guild. Just pass my name along to your group’s program chair or feel free to email me for details: christa@christaquilts.com.

Click here for my current travel and teaching schedule.
I love to go anywhere that I’m invited!

I’m usually pretty good about making a new project from start to finish, but every now and then one of my quilts takes a little longer to finish. My Interlinked quilt was sitting for 2 years just waiting for me to put the binding on – can you believe it??

• Click here to get the Interlinked Quilt Pattern – Printed Version
• Click here to get the Interlinked Quilt Pattern – PDF Version

But I finally finished it on a recent beach vacation so I was able to get some fun “on location” photos of it. Fun fact – we took a photo of this quilt on the same pier at Manhattan Beach where they filmed a scene from La-La Land.

I’m most proud of how I finished the borders on this quilt with the darker corners and I even made the binding to match. This was a matter of sewing the binding in sections to the quilt and pinning it precisely where it changed from light to dark grey.

Bonus Video Tutorials!

While I was making this quilt, I created 2 separate videos – showing how to baste a quilt that was too larger for my design wall, AND how to machine quilt such a huge quilt on a regular domestic machine. You can watch both by clicking the images below to play:

The Interlinked pattern itself includes 4 different sizes with 2 different layouts. In case you missed it, I made the original version as a smaller throw size in neutrals:

The larger version was made from my colorful Stitchy fabrics and I really had fun with the machine quilting!

What’s one of your favorite designs that you’ve made more than once? Leave a comment and let me know. I love making the same quilt in different ways to explore different color combinations and quilting designs!

Fast Facts About These Quilts

• Finished Size: Neutrals – 64″ x 80; Color – 104″ x 112″
• Fabrics Used (all designed by me for Benartex): Neutrals – fabrics from Geo Pop, Gridwork & Fandangle; Color – all from my Stitchy collection
• Batting Used: Neutrals – Hobbs Tuscany Cotton; Colors: Hobbs Tuscany Silk
• Thread Used: Medium Grey from my Piece and Quilt Neutrals Collection, 50 Weight 100% cotton from Aurifil
• Quilting Motifs: Neutrals – Echoed Stitch in the Ditch, Pebbles & Squares, Switchbacks, Jagged Stipple; Color – Echoed Stitch in the Ditch, Pebbles & Squares, Zig Zags, Boxes, Switchbacks, Wavy Roses, Wavy Lines
• Both were pieced and quilted by me on my Bernina 770 QE Sewing Machine

Click here for the Interlinked PDF pattern.
Click here for the Interlinked printed pattern.

The meandering curves and bumps of free-motion stipple quilting help you master creating a smooth, fluid movement. That’s why I wanted to share this short and sweet tutorial early on in my series of 99 Machine Quilting Designs. Take a look at my new machine quilting video below and let me know what you think!

Now I know what you are thinking, “but how do I do that on a real quilt?” In my bonus video below, I show you how to quilt stipple on a real quilt, demonstrating this versatile design on my Modern Logs pattern. This video is a little older and you’ll notice that I’ve upgraded my sewing table since then, but I still think you’ll find it useful. Click play below to watch:

• Click here to grab the Modern Logs quilt pattern – digital PDF version
• Click here to grab the Modern Logs quilt pattern – printed paper version

If you are brand new to this series, be sure to catch the introductory lesson below, showing how to set up your machine for success! The videos are completely free to watch each week, and I highly recommend grabbing a copy of my book, 99 Machine Quilting Designs to follow along!

Click here to Grab the PDF version of my best selling book, 99 Machine Quilting Designs

Be sure to let me know how you are enjoying this series. You can ask me any questions you have, or share your progress over in my Facebook group. I’m here to cheer you on, every step of the way!

I’m excited to announce I got the shipping date for my newest collection (#10) – Dazzle Dots 2 from Benartex. It will be shipping late February to early March, so I can now open up pre-orders for this colorful group!

Click here to reserve your Dazzle Dots 2 fabric.

Just like my previous collections, I’ve put together custom bundles and kits, in addition to the standard precuts (strips, squares and fat quarter stacks). I’m also filming videos for each quilt I make from this fabric, and I can’t wait to share those with you, once the fabric hits stores. For starters, I made 2 versions of my Surplus Strips quilt, and I quilted them both with a different design I can’t wait to share!

Click Here to View all Quilt Kits

Isn’t it fun to see how the same pattern can look with different color combos?

I recolored my Free Beaded Lanterns quilt pattern to show what it would look like using different background colors. Personally, the Icy Blue is my favorite, what’s yours?

As the name implies, Dazzle Dots 2 is a follow up the original best selling Dazzle Dots collection, but in softer colors.

I love how they look together and I’m even tinkering around with an idea of how I can use fat quarters of both in the same quilt!

View all Christa Quilts Fabric Bundles (from Benartex)

So if you’ve been eyeing this collection, go ahead and get your fabric pre-order in now. I’ll be ordering based on demand and it will be shipped on a first come, first served basis. Dazzle Dots 2 has a total of 20 soft colors including a few neutrals, so this will really round out your fabric stash!

Click here to get Dazzle Dots 2: by the yard, in precuts, or custom bundles and kits!