Looking for a free-motion quilting design that can add dense texture to your quilt? Check out the latest from this week’s episode of my “Year of Machine Quilting,” where we will be learning to quilt Broken Feathers and Echoed Paisleys, two designs from my book, 99 Machine Quilting Designs:
Quatrefoil Quilt From The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting
I used both of these designs on “Quatrefoil,” a quilt from my second book, The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting. This book was a collaboration with Angela Walters, featuring 10 quilt patterns with instructions to quilt them using either a longarm or domestic sewing machine. If you want to learn a variety of versatile approaches to quilting entire quilts, then this is the book for you!
Are you enjoying watching my new machine quilting videos each week? I’ll be sharing a total of 60 when all is said and done. You can watch them as much as you like and go back and bookmark your faves. To catch up on any prior episodes you have missed, be sure to watch the playlist for the entire series. Start by clicking play below to catch them all:
I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be teaching at Quilt Festival in Houston, TX this fall! This will be the third time I’ve taught at Festival, so I’m really excited to be returning again this year!
Class Registration begins in June. Classes usually fill up fairly quickly, so I’m going to share the schedule of which classes I’ll be teaching and when, so you can be ready once registration opens:
Sketch It, Then Quilt It Tuesday, October 7: 2-5 PM
Learn how to create a quilting plan for your quilt! This hands-on workshop will allow students to create their own original designs using printed images of their quilts as well as how to create specific plans for a variety of different quilts.
Walking Foot Bootcamp Wednesday, October 8th: 9AM-5PM
In this full day session, students will learn how to quilt a variety of walking foot quilting designs on their domestic sewing machine. I’ll also go over how you would apply these designs to actual, full sized quilts. Whether you are a beginner or want to learn a few extra tips and tricks, this is the class for you!
Improv Free Motion Quilting Thursday, October 9: 9-Noon
This jam-packed class will teach how to combine and design two or more filler motifs into something entirely new. Students will practice drawing the designs on paper, then apply what they’ve learned to sample swatches or orphan blocks.
Modern Machine Quilting Lecture Thursday October 9: 12:45-1:45 PM
This informative lecture demonstrates how the modern aesthetic applies to the machine quilting process. Learn how negative space, minimalism, graphic geometry, improvisation and other hallmarks of the modern aesthetic can be incorporated into your machine quilting work.
Free Motion Bootcamp Friday, October 10: 9AM-5PM
In this full day class, learn the basics of free-motion quilting! We’ll explore a wide range of motifs that will look good on any quilt from modern to traditional. You’ll leave class armed with the confidence that yes, you can quilt your own quilts!
Modern Free Motion Feathers Saturday, October 11: 9AM-12PM
This is a brand new class that I’m so excited to debut at Festival! Students will learn basic feather plume shapes, then build upon those shapes to create entirely new designs. They’ll explore a variety of options such as echo feathers, swirl feathers, “broken” feathers, and many more!
Perfectly Imperfect Free-Motion Swirls Saturday, October 11: 2-5PM
In this class, students will learn how to form the basic swirl shape, then branch off in many different directions as they discover their own signature swirl! Ideas to explore include the wonky swirl, the flower swirl, the elongated swirl, the packed swirl, and many more.
I sure hope I’ll be able to see you at the show. If you can’t catch me in Houston, here’s a link to my traveling and teaching schedule! I love traveling and teaching all over the world and would love to come to a location near you!
Want to practice your free-motion quilting this week? Join me for the latest video of my “Year of Machine Quilting” tutorial series, where we will be quilting two designs from 99 Machine Quilting Designs: Landscape Lines and Partial Waves.
Featured Book: Piece and Quilt with Precuts
The quilt showcased in this week’s video is called Spools, which comes from my book Piece and Quilt with Precuts. This book features 11 quilt patterns as well as step-by step instructions on how to quilt them all! I used Partial Waves on Spools to separate the colorful parts of the quilt from the background, but this book will show you all different kinds of quilting plans and strategies for both walking foot quilting and free-motion!
Bonus Video: Setting Yourself up for Machine Quilting Success
Want to learn more about how to setup you machine for walking foot and free-motion quilting? Check out the series intro, where I give the best tips and tricks for setting yourself up for sewing success!
How Will You Use These Designs?
There are endless possibilities for Landscape Lines and Partial Waves. Try echoing them, combining them together, or experiment with other designs for different textures. Let me know how you are using them in your quilts! You can even share pics of your progress over in my Facebook group. Until next time, Happy Quilting!!
We’re back to Walking Foot quilting this week for 99 Machine Quilting Designs! Wavy Zigzags is a great design to add some quick texture to a small or full-sized quilt. Try quilting it once, twice, or combining it with regular zigzags for endless variety! If you want to learn how-to, check out the video below:
Get the Ticker Tape Quilt Pattern or Kit
Each week I try to feature one of my patterns where I’ve used the design I’m showing you. That way you can actually practice this design on a full sized kit! I quilted some fun wavy double zig-zags on the navy version of my Ticker Tape quilt. This is one of those designs that I’ve made several different versions of, just because it’s so darn fun to experiment!
For even more video fun this week, check out my bonus video showing how I quilted both versions of Ticker Tape shown above. Click the image below to watch:
Are you quilting along?
How are you doing on your machine quilting practice? Are you following along and making up the practice sandwiches? Please let me know how it’s going or if you have any questions that I can trouble shoot for you. My goal is to inspire you to quilt more of your own quilts and have fun doing it!
This week for 99 Machine Quilting Designs I’m showing how to free-motion quilt several loop variations. They are one of my go-to designs! Click below to watch:
These 3 designs all come from my book 99 Machine Quilting Designs. You can grab the instant PDF download of this book from my Etsy shop and follow along with each video that I’m sharing all year long!
After watching my video tutorials each week, I’m sure you’ll want to apply what you’ve learned on a real quilt. I’ve taken the basic loops I shared in this week’s tutorial and have modified it to include another design I recently shared – boxes – to create a fun and festive design that I quilted on my Fancy Gifts quilt!
I recently entered 2 quilts into my local quilt guild’s show and was pleased with both the feedback and the response they got, so I thought I would share more about that with you today!
Interlinked Wins 1st Place!!
First up is my Interlinked Quilt. This one is huge – King sized to be exact! I had finished nearly all of this quilt a couple years ago when my Stitchy fabric first came out. However, I dragged my feet on finishing the binding because I wanted it to match up perfectly with the offset borders. Once I finally did, I was pleased that it was able to be hung in the show and received a 1st place ribbon in the Modern Category.
Interlinked Custom Quilting Detail
The only bummer is that it was so huge that you can’t even see all of it in the picture, LOL! But I’m pleased that the judge liked it. Here are the comments I received on this quilt:
“Use and placement of neutrals and colors create great movement and keeps the eye moving. Piecing is good. Variety of quilting designs enhance your modern aesthetic. And the quilting technique is generally well done. Some buildup of threads in some backtracking areas should be avoided. Outer edges should be straight, and binding is well done.”
Just in case this is the first time you are seeing this quilt, I actually made a video showing how I managed such a large quilt on a regular sized sewing machine. Take a look below to watch:
Swanky Spirals Quilt
Next up, I entered my Swanky Spirals quilt made from my Dazzle Dots fabric. Originally I had planned to do a simpler quilting design since it’s such a busy quilt. However, once I started quilting different designs in each wedge of each block, I just couldn’t stop!
Here’s the judging feedback I received for this quilt:
“Successful modern esthetic. Grey neutral was a good choice for the balance of the brights. Pacing is generally good. Intersections should be precise. The variety of quilting designs greatly enhanced the piecing and the theme. Quilting should remain in the ditch. Back art is appreciated. Binding is generally good. Take care with miters.”
Swanky Spirals Quilting Detail
If you’d like more details on how I quilted each and every part of this quilt, take a look at the bonus video below:
Interlinked & Swanky Spirals Quilt Patterns
If you’d like to make either or both of these quilts, you can grab the patterns in print or PDF.
Want to learn to quilt a fun modern meander called Circuit Board? This is the next installment of my “Year of Machine Quilting” free video tutorials for you to try! Click the image below to watch:
This week’s featured quilt comes from my latest book, “How Do I Quilt It?” In this book (which is required reading for all of my in-person workshops), I show how to quilt 3 different quilts, 3 different ways. In the teal version of Loose Weave, shown under my machine on the book cover below, I’m free-motion quilting circuit board as an edge to edge allover design. So take what you’ve learned in the video above, and you can make this super fun and simple quilt!
I love to clear out the old, to make room for the new! Be sure to head over to my online shop where I sell all of my designer fabrics, patterns and other fun goodies. I’m needing to make room on my shelves for my new Dazzle Dots 2 collection, so now is your chance to scoop up some of my older fabrics & bundles for less than retail price.
Get My Book – Piece and Quilt with Precuts for More Designs!
Two of the quilt patterns I show in the video above come from my 3rd book Piece and Quilt with Precuts. It’s now out of print but you can grab the PDF version from my Etsy Shop!
Bonus Freebie: Modern Table Runner Pattern + Video
I quilted this fun Modern Table runner design 3 different ways. Can you see the zig zags stitched on the grey version? Grab my free pattern to make these projects below. It includes 3 quilting plans for all free versions, plus a bonus video showing how I quilted them all!
Can you believe I’ve designed 10 fabric lines? Do you have any of my previous collections in your stash? Although I love releasing a new fabric group once or twice a year, I really look at it as one continuous collection. I enjoying adding more fabrics and designs when I realize what I’m missing in my own stash, LOL!
After the tremendous success of the original Dazzle Dots, my fabric company asked for more dots! Since I did bold saturated colors last time, I though it would be fun to lighten things up again and add soft pastels to the mix. I absolutely love how they play well together and have plans to incorporate both groups into the same quilt, soon. Won’t that be fun??
Dazzle Dots 2 includes a total of 20 prints – 10 dots and 10 squares. Aren’t they scrumptious?
I recently making 2 new versions of my Surplus Strips quilts using all of these pretties. I used the grey dots for the background of one of them, and the white squares for the background of the other. You can grab a quilt kit for one or both for a limited time! And I’ll be sharing a video soon, showing how I quilted them both, so stay tuned for that!
How are you enjoying my year of machine quilting videos so far? Are you finding time to practice? I have another fun set of Walking Foot quilting designs for you to try – Shattered Lines and Wavy Shattered Lines. Take a look below:
Bonus Video – Quilting Shattered Lines on Bling
If you’d like to see how I quilted shattered lines on a “real” quilt, take a look at my bonus video below. I’m demonstrating on one of the versions of my Bling quilt pattern.
I love including quilting suggestions in all of my individual quilt patterns. You’ll never see the words “quilt as desired” from me, LOL!! Bling was such a fun quilt that I made it twice. Isn’t it fun to see how different fabrics, layout and quilting can affect the look of a quilt? Grab the pattern and get started making this quilt today!
Christa Quilts 