Christa’s Soap Box – Modern Quilting Validation

April 5, 2014April 4, 201456 Comments

It’s no secret I’ve fallen head over heels for modern quilting and the community that surrounds it. Because of this vibrant movement, I’ve probably made more meaningful quilts in the last year than I have in the previous ten years combined! This weekend my tastes were validated when 3 of my modern quilts took 1st, 2nd and 3rd place ribbons in my traditional guild’s annual quilt show. 🙂

Ribbon winners got to wear these buttons of pride while walking around the show!

I’ve been a member of the Desert Quilters of Nevada going on 18 years now. It’s a lively group, full of encouragement and support. Even though I’m one of the youngest of the 400+ member group (and have been ever since I joined nearly 2 decades ago), the guild has offered me a place to share my quilts, practice my teaching skills, and attend amazing workshops and events.

String of Pearls by Christa Watson, 1st Place – DQN Pieced Category 2014

DQN is very open minded when it comes to the latest happenings in the quilt world. They have a very healthy art quilt subgroup and they’ve even recently started a modern “circle.”

I’m super excited that they’ve invited me to teach String of Pearls at this year’s annual quilting retreat. But I’m even more jazzed that the theme of the retreat is going to be “It’s a Modern World.” I mean, how cool is that??

Modern X by Christa Watson, 2nd Place – DQN Modern Category 2014

At the show it was fun to see people walk by Modern X and do a double take. One gentleman I spoke to, a long-arm quilter by trade, couldn’t figure out where I started and stopped my lines of stitching.

When I told him I quilted long lines from one edge of the quilt to the other on my Bernina, he said you couldn’t really do that type of uninterrupted straight-line quilting on a long arm. (Score one for the domestic quilters!)

Spiraling Out of Control by Christa Watson, 3rd Place – DQN Modern Category

And I have to admit, it was super validating when Spiraling Out of Control took a 3rd place ribbon. This is probably my most favorite quilt to date and one where I really stretched myself doing stuff I’d never tried before. I always try to remind everyone (including myself) that I don’t enter my quilts in shows to win ribbons, but it sure is like icing on the cake when they do!

I have to give a final shout out to this fabulous quilt below which is NOT mine. It was made by one of my students who began it in my Charming Chevrons class last year. I couldn’t have been more proud to see that ribbon hanging on it!

Gray Chevy by Suzanne Mayfield, quilted by Brenda Alcorn, 1st Place – DQN Modern Category

Suzanne kindly credited me in her description as the pattern designer, so in some small way, I even got to be a part of this award-winning quilt, too!

Well, now you know what this means – it’s time to go make more quilts!

Christa’s Soap Box: Please and Thank You – Those are Magic Words!

March 24, 2014May 15, 201410 Comments

I wanted to share several thank you’s to those of you who read my blog, support my store, and encourage and inspire me!

I’ve reached a milestone with the number of people who follow me, and I couldn’t be more pleased that so many of you enjoy reading what I have to say. I started blogging 4 years ago as a way to express my feelings about quilting and record my works in progress. Over the years, it’s grown into so much more.

When Jason and I started working together full time, our website was our focus and the blog was just an extra way to reach out to people. But now I spend more time blogging than I do selling and that’s just fine with me! Because of the support of so many of you, I’m able to spend more of my time doing what I really enjoy: writing, teaching, designing, and of course quilting.

Now here’s where the please comes in. I still have about 500 items left in my webstore that I’d like to clear out as fast as possible. It’s all on sale and we are just waiting for it to move out so we can reclaim some much needed space. So please, can you give these items a good home?

Click here to see all items on sale.

Christa knew that “she who dies with the most fabric wins” but just couldn’t help cutting into her “stash.”

We are still selling precuts and thread but have been clearing out everything else over the last several months because frankly, it’s too labor intensive to manage. There are so many other fabulous full-service quilt shops that do a wonderful job, so we’d rather support them instead!

So thank you again for being the reason I blog! Many exciting things are in the works and I’ll continue to share them with you every day, as they happen. 🙂

Christa’s Soap Box – It’s time to brag about my friends: Cory and Carolina

March 17, 2014March 17, 20145 Comments

I’m so excited that I get to share some cool things my friends are doing. And not just because their names both happen to start with a “C” (though that is pretty cool)! Cory is my rather blogless friend, so I took it upon myself to shout her praises. I keep telling her that if she ever gets a blog, I think she’ll be an overnight success. 🙂

Cory is an amazing long-arm quilter, and one of her collaboration quilts was recently featured in the March issue of The Quilt Life magazine. The quilt is called Northwest Passage, and it’s part of an article titled “Going Dutch” written by Colleen Harvey.

Northwest Passage, Pieced by Diane Johnston, Quilted by Cory Allender

When I first met Cory, she presented a trunk show of her amazing work to my local quilt guild, including Northwest Passage, shown above. Of course I blogged about it, and somehow, Colleen Harvey happened to see my blog post later on. She contacted me to inquire about including the quilt in her article, and I was able to help her get in touch with Cory and Diane. I just love it when things work out like that!

Mini Quilt Math – a Craftsy blog post by Carolina Moore

The other good news I want to share is about my friend Carolina who is a prolific blogger. She was recently invited to be a guest blogger for Craftsy and she’s actually written two posts so far!

Carolina teaches you how to calculate the math for mini triangles, too!

Carolina loves modern quilts and mini’s and she’s created a 2-part series about math for minis. She shows you how to calculate the sizes so that you can shrink down any full-size quilt block into a mini version. How cool is that? Be sure to read part 1 and part 2 here and then give her some comment love. 🙂

How about you? What cool quilting stuff is going on in your life, or that of your friends and family? I am a self-proclaimed quilting cheerleader, so I’d love to give you a virtual pat-on-the back, too!

Tips for Getting Started with Modern Quilt Design

March 14, 2014March 13, 20149 Comments

My latest blog post for Craftsy has been published, and I’m rather pleased with the subject matter. It’s called 7 Tips for Getting Started with Modern Quilt Design and I really enjoyed writing it.

The back of Colorful Chevrons – I think it’s more modern than the front. Tutorial here.

Suffice it to say, I had fun gathering pictures and examples of modern quilting, and emailing their makers to obtain permission to share. It was really just a great excuse to get to know more amazing designers, and this is just the tip of the iceberg! I could have included dozens more if I had the time and space to write about them.

Another “modern” backing I designed. One day I’ll make something like this for the front!

So don’t be surprised if modern quilts are all I can think about for awhile. I have to make up for lost time!

Sew and Tell – Do You EQ? I Do!

March 8, 2014March 7, 201444 Comments

It’s no secret I love designing and making quilts.

Since discovering the modern quilting movement, I’ve been inspired to create more original designs in the last 2 years than I have in the last 10 years combined! All it took was finding my niche and discovering the right motivation.

I’m pleased to announce that the folks over at Electric Quilt are enjoying my passion for design, too!

I’ve recently been invited to become an “official” EQ Artist and am now featured on their Do You EQ? site along with plenty of other well-known quilters in the industry. I have to tell you, it’s a little bit intimidating to be featured alongside so many amazing quilters who also design in EQ. I keep waiting for them to tell me, “not really – we were just kidding!”

But lots of good has come out of this. For starters, it has encouraged me to do all of my designing in EQ7 so that I can practice becoming comfortable with more aspects of the software.

My latest EQ7 design – This quilt will do double duty as my entry into the next MQG fabric challenge, and as a future class sample. Stay tuned for more!

Also, I’ve finally taken the plunge and have started publishing my own patterns, integrating images from EQ7 along with good old basic word processing software. So far I’ve only finished one pattern, but the next one will launch soon, and I’ve got more coming. Be sure to keep an eye on my Craftsy Pattern Store for more.

Charming Chevrons – my first officially “published” pattern. You’ve seen this one before!

Finally, I’ve decided I will start teaching some introduction to EQ7 classes later this year. I’ve had several requests to teach about the software, but it will take me awhile to develop a class. My favorite local quilt shop is in need of new teacher so the timing is right. I’ll keep you posted in case any of you are in the mood for a road trip to Vegas later in the fall.

And now, on to the next design!

Christa’s Soapbox – I am not a fan of polyster batting.

February 24, 2014February 24, 201464 Comments

I recently tried using a high quality polyester batting for one of my quilts because a few professional quilters I admire recommended it. However, this is one of those instances where quilting on a domestic machine versus a long arm is quite different.

On a long arm, the 3 layers of the quilt are held in place separately and evenly while the quilter rotates the machine over the surface of the quilt. However, on a domestic machine, there is a lot of shifting and bunching of the quilt, to scrunch it underneath the arm of the machine. Here’s the backside of a polyester batting disaster in progress:

Before with 100% polyester batting – it’s too slippery!

Unfortunately, the polyester batting is so “slippery” that it migrated and bunched while quilting. I originally pin basted the quilt but decided to rip all of it out and start over with new batting and basting spray instead.

While I am definitely not a perfectionist, this amount of wrinkling was just too much for me to handle, especially for a quilt that is going to be shared in public. I actually quilted it a lot more than what the photo shows above, but in order to keep my sanity, I couldn’t bear to take any more pictures!

So after a few tears, an evening of Downton Abbey, and a healthy dose of tenacity, here’s the newly quilted back. I ended up going with a blend of 70/30 cotton/poly and I utilized Ann Petersen’s tip of ironing the quilt after spray basting with a natural fiber batting.

After with a cotton/poly blend – still a few wrinkles, but much much better!

There is still a small amount of wrinkling but I”m adding a lot more quilting in between each “anchored” section and it’s quilting out nicely. However, I think I’ll stick with zero % poly in my quilts from now on. (The Quilter’s Dream Orient batting I used in my last quilt had no puckering at all!)

This sneak peek shows a much happier quilting session after I fixed most of the puckering!

Machine Quilting Bliss

A word to the wise on batting – the only way to truly know how a batting will perform is to test it on a real quilt. 🙂 Now I just have to finish the binding and wait for the big reveal!

A Little Light Reading…

February 17, 2014February 13, 201413 Comments

Since taking up modern quilting, I’ve had a desire to learn more about modern art and graphic design, in order to better understand what makes a successful modern quilt. I’m also trying to figure out why I’m drawn to these quilts so much. I just love the graphic quality of high-contrast modern quilts with their sleek lines and lack of embellishment.

I’m still kicking myself for not pursuing art in college (yeah, yeah, a business degree was so much more “practical”). But as they say, it’s never to late to learn! Jason was observant enough to see my recent interest in art history as it pertains to quilting, and he quickly ordered a couple of used books for me from Amazon so that I can pursue a little independent study on my own. 🙂

How about you? What moves you to action and inspires you to learn?

Modern Quilts at AQS Phoenix 2014

February 10, 2014February 9, 201427 Comments

I had the great opportunity to attend AQS Phoenix last week and check out all of the awesome modern quilts. Click here for the list of all AQS winners.

Unraveling #2 by Judy Tescher, Pendleton, IN
3rd Place

It’s inspiring to get up close and personal with so many bold and graphic quilts, something that’s hard to do by just looking at pictures online, or in books and magazines.

Thoroughly Modern Millie by Karolyn Jensen, Tucson AZ
Honorable Mention

Throughout this post, I’m sharing modern quilts from the show that really spoke to me and engaged my attention.

Bookcases by Jane Bromberg, Kansas City, MO

Whether they were awarded ribbons or not, they are certainly winners in my eyes.

Cycles 2 by Leanne Chahley, Alberta, Canada
1st Place

I’m loving that fact that more and more people are taking the plunge and entering their modern quilts into shows because I think it’s having a huge impact on the quilting community.

Fissures by Debra Jeske, Lynnwood, WA
2nd Place

Modern quilters are proving to the world that functional, “made it myself” quilts can be just as beautiful as over-the-top bedazzled pieces.

Be Yourself – Everyone Else is Taken by Meg Cowey, Western Australia

As quilters embrace the organic beauty of crafting their own quilts rather than opting to pay for computerized perfection, I believe this movement will continue to explode.

Quilterly Realism by Amanda Ruden, Albuquerque, NM

I like to compare quilts show to fashion shows – you can see an amazing amount of diverse talent all in one spot.

Moons Over Bars by Susan Garrity, Wilson, WY
Modern Quilt Challenge

Depending on your own personal aesthetic, the quilts can be soul-inspiring and engaging, or they can be overwhelming and perhaps a little outrageous.

Quilts from the Modern Quilt Challenge Exhibit

Whatever the case or your opinion, large national shows certainly generate excitement for the craft and help shape the conversation of quilting.

Quilts from the Modern Quilt Challenge Exhibit

Over time, ongoing trends seen at quilt shows trickle down and permeate throughout the entire quilting community.

Quilts from the Modern Quilt Challenge Exhibit

I for one am glad for the proliferation of quilting events and shows – and I can’t wait for the next one!

Keep it Simple by Jodi Robinson, Enon Valley, PA
Best Modern Quilt

Christa’s Soap Box – Embrace Imperfectionism!

February 8, 2014February 7, 201453 Comments

I am a budding imperfectionist.

It’s not really a word, but I did find it in a search of the Urban Dictionary. Obviously, it means: “to be good at being imperfect; ie not perfect.”

Having fun and sharing quilts with friends in Phoenix!

I am a perfectionist by nature, which at times has stifled my creative journey. For years, I thought I had to be “perfect” in order to share my work publicly. I hid in the comfort and safety of my local quilting guild, waiting for the time that I would be “good enough” to share my quilts with a wider audience.

Thanks to the online quilting community and especially the modern quilting movement, I’ve realized that quilts don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful! And the more they are shared, the more they are loved. 🙂 I’m learning that perfectionism only stands in my way, and it keeps me from finishing more quilts.

So I’ve decided to work on perfecting my imperfectionism. Darn it, I don’t want to miss out on any more of the fun! Who’s with me?

Christa’s Soapbox – Do What You Love!

February 3, 2014January 28, 201429 Comments

I’m getting up on my soapbox today (or is it soap box? I don’t know!) to encourage you to do what you love! My recent Road trip to the fantastic California quilt show reminded me of this in so many ways.

Christa Watson with String of Pearls at Road to California, 2014

The classes were phenomenal, the convenience food was actually pretty decent, and the quilts were simply amazing. I realized that I absolutely love going to shows and sharing my quilts, whether they win a ribbon or not. I have to say it was fun to “stalk” my quilt and stealthily listen in as others said nice things about it. 🙂

Plus it was super fun to meet up with a couple of my online friends in person. I had lunch one day with Cindy from Live a Colorful Life and her friends, aka Simply Miss Luella and OP Quilt!

Eating lunch with blogger friends at Road to Ca

I was also able to meet Andres from Mad Tesla who’s quickly become one of my buddies from the MQG (modern quilt guild) online. He introduced me to a few of his friends from the Ventura MQG and we had the best time swapping opinions on how glad we were to finally see modern quilts at Road to California!

Modern Minds Think Alike!

Debby Brown – A Quilting Rock Star!

One super amazing person who seems to be as passionate about her craft as I am, is quilting instructor Debby Brown.

I took an amazing feather class from her, and I could tell that she is doing what she loves. She was having as much fun teaching, as her students were learning!

Debby Brown is truly a rock star. Not only was she entertaining to listen to and a very well-organized instructor; she also made us feel that we were working at a good pace and making progress with our practice.

Debby prepped the best class kit I have ever seen: a pre-basted baby-quilt sized sandwich marked with spaces for us to quilt in.

We all used the same materials so that Debby could help us trouble shoot if needed. The full-day format really allowed us to explore all types of feathers.

I highly recommend taking a class from Debby if you ever get a chance!

By far, my favorite design that Debby had us try were these swirling vine feathers. Aren’t they the cutest? I can totally see myself quilting this on one of my quilts in the future.

Feathers can be fun (and modern)!

The entire class got to quilt on Handi Quilter Sweet 16 machine the whole day. I felt right at home because the movement is similar to quilting on a domestic machine; there’s just a lot more room! It was fun to play with feathers and fills and create all sorts of interesting textures.

More Fun Feathers!

I took a few mental notes on how I can be a better teacher. Debby was so good and patient with questions, really explained things until everyone understood, and had her own machine set up so that we could watch her stitch out the designs before we tried them.