Whenever I share about my spray basting process, I get all kinds of great questions, so this week I put together a comprehensive video showing my method. I’m demonstrating on 3 different quilts: my smaller version of Modern Logs, my larger Hashtags quilt, and an older quilt called Improv Squares. Check out the video below and please let me know if you have any questions!
What better way to ring in the new year, than with 4 fabulous and free quilt patterns, just for you! In case you haven’t visited my free quilt patterns page, check out each of the PDF downloads below and get ready for a quilty new year!
Use the full jelly roll for option 1. Or pair up 20 strips of light or dark prints with a contrasting light or dark background for options 2 or 3. No matter which one you choose, it will look fabulous indeed!
I design most of my fabric lines to have a colorful variety of lights and darks. So this pattern is the perfect match for any of my designer jelly rolls, but it still looks great in any fabric combo with good light/dark contrast.
It includes a step-by-step quilting plan, too! Although I made it with the light gray confetti crosshatch print shown above, you can use the darker version, too. Or go super scrappy with leftovers from your stash!
The version of Rainbow Taffy shown above was made from charm packs of my very first fabric line, Modern Marks. Sadly, it’s out of print, but it would look fabulous remade from some of my custom color bundles in rainbow order!
I hope you enjoy these free quilt patterns! If you make any of them, be sure to tag me on social media #christaquilts. Or share pics in my ChristaQuilts Group on Facebook. I’d love to see!
We are just a week away from the end of the year (thank goodness!) and just over a week away from the start of my Blooming Wallflowers quilt along! Here are a few reminders as we anticipate this super fun event!
I’m going to be posting updates each week in all the places. That means if you follow me here on the blog and are reading this, you don’t have to do a thing. Just keep reading my blog! I’ll also be sharing the same info in my newsletter, youtube, facebook and instagram.
That may seem overwhelming, but it’s really not. Not everyone follows me everywhere, so I don’t mind reformatting the info to meet everyone where they are at.
And if you DO follow me in more than one spot, it will be a good reminder to keep you moving along. To recap, here are a roundup of links to all of the important info so you are ready to begin, starting on January 3rd. I can’t wait!!
Important Links for Blooming Wallflowers Quilt Along
I recently made a “grand plan” for my social media including more blogging, YouTubing, instagramming, and more. Part of that plan was to release a new video tutorial each week! Subscribe to my ChristaQuilts YouTube channel to get instantly notified when a new one drops. My latest tutorial shows how to machine bind a quilt 2 different way. Click below to watch:
If you have any questions about my process, please leave them in the comments and I’m happy to answer. Each weekly video will be around 10-11 minutes in length, and I have so many more fun ideas planned, so stay tuned!!
It’s no secret that I’m a cheerleader for the quilting industry. One of my favorite things is being an ambassador for companies whose products I love. Full disclosure: I’m not paid for this other than getting a few free or discounted products here & there, but that’s not why I do it. I sing these companies’ praises because I LOVE their stuff and want everyone to have as much fun quilting as much as I do!! (And yes, I’ve turned down plenty of opportunities from companies who DON’T float my boat!!)
Electric Quilt Co. showcased my work in their Booth at QuiltCon several years back & I’ve also been featured in a few ad campaigns, too. I’ve been super loyal to them ever since I started designing quilts! I design each and every quilt I make in EQ8!
They love working with designers to cross-promote. Ever since I’ve used their software to design commercial patterns, my friends at EQ have done an amazing job promoting my books, patterns, fabrics and more. It’s been a mutually beneficial relationship and the folks that work for the company genuinely love what they do.
I can see the finished design in the exact fabrics I plan to use, before ever making the first cut! This is so valuable to me as a fabric and pattern designer. Because most of my stuff has to be designed months ahead of when it’s available for sale, being able to create a perfect rendering of the finished design is such a critical part of my work flow.
EQ8 checks my math for me. Although I design all of my quilts from scratch and calculate the yardage requirements myself, I love being able to use the calculate yardage feature as a double check. If something’s way off, I’ll be able to spot it right away and fix it asap!
Amazing product support. I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but I’m often not as tech savvy as I’d like to be. There are a LOT of things I don’t know how to do in the software. But it’s always a fun learning experience when I’m trying something new. When you have a question about how to perform a certain task in EQ, my #1 tip when is to contact customer support or search their website and check out ALL of the tutorials. My #2 tips is to google “How do I ______ in EQ?” Chances are, someone has already written a blog post about that!
Most of their block designs are copyright free. Did you know that? I think all (or nearly all) of the blocks included in the basic version of EQ are public domain and/or copyright free. That makes it easy to start with a traditional quilt block and then build an original design from there. Why re-draw a 9 patch when I can already start what’s in the program to begin with, right??
So those are just a few of the many reasons I love designing in EQ8. Below are some of my quilts designed in EQ compared to the actual finished quilt. Can you tell which is which?
This is my Sparkling Stars Quilt. It was critical to get exact fabric placement for this quilt. EQ makes it easy!
Facets, shown above, was the first quilt I designed for my first book, Machine Quilting with Style way back in 2015. Sometimes I create an exact design in EQ; other times, especially when designing improv quilts, I’m not too worried about exact color or fabric placement.
Fast forward to a recent finish and I’m still designing and making quilts the same way! This is “Hashtags” one of the layouts included in my Bling Quilt Pattern.
EQ8 allows me to upload images of my own fabric and rescale the sizes if needed. I really don’t know how to design without it!
I hope you enjoyed that bit of inspiration. If you use Electric Quilt Software to design quilts, be sure to tell me all about it in the comments. I’d love to know which features YOU use the most!
I sure hope you are enjoying my live chats! They happen every Tuesday at 2 PM Pacific Time in my Christa Quilts Group on Facebook. Then I post the replays here on the blog and over on my YouTube channel. Click the image below to watch the chat about quilting with Variegated Thread.
My Favorite Machine Quilting Thread
Here is my Variegated Thread collection from Aurifil. I find myself using these more and more for all of my machine quilting. I can usually quilt an entire throw sized quilt from just one spool of thread.
I’m thrilled to be remaking my Blooming Wallflowers Quilt right along with all of you. This page will serve as the landing spot for all of the quilt along info. As I share new blog posts and videos, I’ll update those links right here, so be sure to bookmark this page and refer back to it each week!
Don’t think you have to choose the exact same colors that I did. Here are two more suggested color schemes. But really, the sky’s the limit when it comes to your creativity. You can make this quilt scrappy or coordinated – the choice is up to you!
I recolored this version in EQ8 (Electric Quilt), using a mix of my fabric lines in red, white & gray.
Make a Scrappy Quilt from Fat Quarters!
1 fat quarter’s worth of fabric is enough to cut 1 full flower set (8 triangles total), so mix and match from your stash, or try out some of my custom color bundles for more variety! No matter which fabrics you choose, it’s going to look great!!
If you’d like to get notified each time a quilt along post has released, be sure to enter your email address in the box located on the right hand side of your screen. If you are viewing this on a phone or other mobile device, you’ll need to scroll aaaaaaalllllllllll the way down to the bottom of the screen to see it. I can’t wait to get started!
Now that I’m back in the swing of blogging and video editing, I have a fun tutorial for you today. This is how I finished the binding on my Modern Logs Quilt made from Good Vibes fabric. I finished the stitching by hand – although you could definitely do it by machine. (Stay tuned for my machine binding tutorial soon!)
Click here, or the image below to view my quilt binding tutorial on my YouTube channel. It’s less than 10 minutes long.
Now that I’ve done a few live chats, I guess it’s time to number them and call it a series, right?? This week we were chatting about my pattern design process, why I love EQ8 for quilt design, and where some of my inspiration comes from. I hope you enjoy it!! If you missed the live weekly chat in my facebook group, view the replay on my YouTube channel or click the image below:
Next week, we will be chatting about machine quilting with variegated thread with lots of fun examples!
Every year around this time, you can see one of the most amazing virtual quilt shows on the internet: the QuiltCon Reject parade. This is everyone posting their entries into the show that did not get accepted. Now to put things into perspective, there’s usually around 1800+ entries and room for only about 300-400 of them. So that’s a LOT of quilts that don’t make it in. Without further ado, I thought it would be fun to post my entries that did not get accepted with a note about each under the image. I hope you enjoy the virtual show!
Above is “Mini X” a smaller version of my Modern X quilt pattern. I’ll be updating the pattern soon, but in the meantime here’s the secret: follow the pattern as written but cut smaller (or larger) blocks to change up the size.
Next is Interlinked above: one of my most popular quilt patterns of all time. Now to be fair, this was shown in the show virtually last year. We were allowed to re-enter the in person show even if it was shown at the virtual show previously. But darn it – I really wanted to hang this one in person, LOL!
This is Infrastructure, one of my favorite quilts I made that I didn’t actually design. It was a collaboration between myself and Heather Black of Quiltachusettes. We even did a quilt along to make this quilt. (Click here for the Infrastructure Quilt Along and follow along at your own pace). Here’s a hint: quilts that you design yourself have a better chance of making it in the show. I still love it though, even if it didn’t get in!
Entering Optical Illusion was sort of a cheat. I’ve actually made this quilt from solids, before I designed fabric, so the original version actually hung at QuiltCon in 2015. I was just hoping the newer version made with my fabric would be allowed to hang, too. So it’s ok that this one didn’t make it in.
This is one of my all time favorite designs. I’ve made Modern Logs a few times now in different fabric lines and it’s still fun to make!! You can grab a kit to make this quilt from Good Vibes (shown above) or my newest Black, White & Bright collection, while supplies last.
Pixie Stix
This is Pixie Stix, mad from my Good Vibes fabric line. It’s another one that was seen in the virutal show last year, too. So again, it’s no surprise that there wasn’t room for it this year. It was actually part of QuiltCon magazine in 2021 so it did get some niceexposure. I plan to write a stand alone pattern for it soon, and possibly remake it with a different layout, so stay tuned for more on that front….
Sadly I didn’t get any entries in this year, but I was only sad for about 5 minutes. After all, I’ve had a quilt hang in the show every single time until now, so I totally get that it’s someone else’s turn to get their quilts in, too. This is the first year I didn’t specifically make a quilt FOR the show since most of my recent quilts have been to showcase my fabric collections. Also, the deadline snuck up on me since it was a month earlier this year. But that’s ok – I’ll just get started on next year’s entries NOW!
So there you have it. I really enjoy participating in Quiltcon and plan to attend every year, whether I have a quilt to share or not. I’m excited for my upcoming (sold out) workshops, and I can’t wait to see all of the beauitful quilts that DID make it in the show.
If you’d like to learn a more about QuiltCon and read about my experiences from prior years, check out what I’ve previously written by clicking any of the links below.
Christa Quilts 