Machine Quilting with Style: Broken V Re-Imagined

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I’ve been having a great time recoloring all of the quilts from my book Machine Quilting with Style. I hope you’ve been getting inspired by all the possibilities. 🙂

Machine Quilting With Style

This week, I’m sharing about Broken V. First, here’s the original – a simple modern design made from half-square triangles. I love how the solids really show off the machine quilting, but it would look just as fabulous in prints!

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Broken V 60″ x 70″ by Christa Watson. Photography by Brent Kane for Martingale.

Broken V Re-imagined

First of all, I thought it would be fun to change out the background to a dark navy while still pairing it up with bold solids:

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I design all of my quilts using Electric Quilt Software.

For the next re-coloring, I thought it would be fun to use Cozy Christmas prints from Lori Holt for a completely different look, perfect for the upcoming holidays:

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Click here to purchase Cozy Christmas precut bundles by Lori Holt.

Celebration Giveaway

Each week along with sharing new versions of each quilt, I’m also hosting  a giveaway. It’s like a 12 week-long birthday party, celebrating the joy that writing this book has brought into my life after just a year in print!

Last time Jean K. and Lillian K each won a four pack of my quilt patterns. This week I’m going to send one lucky winner a copy of The Quilter’s Planner, produced by my friend Stephanie Palmer of Late Night Quilter.

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I was excited to have my Feathered Chevrons quilt included along with 13 other fabulous projects shown below.

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And if that wasn’t exciting enough, Stephanie is also throwing in a fun bundle of Blueberry Park fabric for another lucky winner.

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How to Enter

Just leave a comment below letting me know how you usually plan out your days. Do you use a paper planner? A digital tool? The back of your hand??? 🙂

I’ll pick 2 US winners next Friday when I reveal the next recolored quilt!

More Inspiration & Where to Buy

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My book was published on my daughter’s birthday last year, so she got the first copy!

Happy Thanksgiving 2016

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From all of us to all of you I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and get to enjoy time with your loved ones this weekend!

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Apple Pie from my daughter’s church camp fundraiser. Thank goodness we bought plenty so we could test them out ahead of time!!

And even if you are from a country outside the US, I think it’s still totally fine to enjoy some pie for breakfast!

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Our plan for the day is to enjoy our annual morning 5k family run, eat some yummy pie and then hang out with the family and play games. I’m preparing several quilts to bind so I can enjoy the holiday – quilty style!

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I love a scrappy binding!

We participate in a friends and family run each year on Thanksgiving morning. Then we don’t feel so guilty about eating pie for breakfast! If you have a fun holiday tradition, please leave me a comment below – I’d love to know what it is.

Thanksgiving Day Race

Turkey Trot from Thanksgiving Past – that’s my oldest son wearing a turkey hat!!

My Books on Sale – Just in Time for Holiday Gift Giving

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I’m a numbers gal so it’s always fun for me to check and see how well my books are selling and what their ranking is online. Today when I checked, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the price of both of my books have been reduced on Amazon, just in time for holiday shopping! Now, don’t worry, the price that is charged has nothing to do with the royalties I receive once they are sold. In fact, it’s a win for me because they more that are sold, the happier I am!

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So if you’ve been eyeing either of my books, head over to Amazon now to pick them up. And if you already own one or both, grab a copy for a friend and give them the gift of machine quilting!

Click here to purchase Machine Quilting with Style or The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting

***Disclaimer*** This screen shot was taken this morning and prices may fluctuate due to demand. But they are still going for less than retail. Also, by purchasing from the links in this post, I’ll receive a small commission for each one sold.. As always, thanks for your support!!

Quilt As Desired Article 5: Quilting Negative Space

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The following article was originally written as part of my Quilt As Desired column for the National Quilting Association’s Quilting Quarterly magazine. The association was disbanded after nearly 46 years, so this article was never published. Scroll to the end for links to all of my previously written articles.

Quilting Negative Space by Christa Watson

Negative space, also known as “the background” or “white space,” can include any color of fabric and is not relegated to solids only. Negative space creates contrast in your quilt, allowing the main design to shine. In many modern quilts, there can often be more negative space than design or “positive space,” leading to a conundrum of how to quilt it.
Here are four suggestions on how to quilt negative space:photo1 Photo 1 – Abacus Quilt by Christa Watson

(1) Quilt an allover linear design such as the continuous wavy lines in Abacus (see photo 1). This type of quilting works well regardless of block layout. It can help emphasize the textural quality of the quilt, rather than the absence of design. Continuous wavy lines can be quilted easily with a walking foot and a straight stitch by turning the quilt from side to side, or using a decorative machine stitch. Confident free-motion quilters can comfortably quilt continuous wavy lines back and forth across the entire surface of the quilt.

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Photo 2 – Me and My Shadow by Vicki Ruebel of Orchid Owl Quilts

(2) Create a secondary composition in the negative space. Vicki Ruebel quilted a near-mirror image of her whimsical bird in her award winning quilt, Me and My Shadow (see photo 2). She sketched the outline of the bird and feathers, and used the same drawing to create both the quilted and appliqued birds. She used two layers of batting to create definition, filling in the areas around both birds with free-motion swirls on her long-arm machine.

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Photo 3 – Wholecloth by Ida Ewing of Ida Rather Be Quilting

(3) Divide and conquer if the negative space is too much to tackle at once. Ida Ewing created her negative space design by marking an “E” and echoing around the letter. She then subdivided each section of the quilt and filled it in with a different free-motion motif (see photo 3). This filler technique looks stunning on any size quilt from a small wholecloth piece to a bed-size quilt with vast amounts of negative space.

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Photo 4 – Ida shows what a difference the quilting can make!

(4) Repeat elements from the block into the negative space. For Ida’s Little Guppy quilt (see photo 4), she created a diamond in a square motif with her quilting, emphasizing the square block design. The pebble quilting relates to the circles in the print, unifying the piece.
The next time you are stumped on how to quilt negative space, grab a piece of paper and a pen or pencil and just start doodling. You never know when inspiration will strike!

Further Reading

Click the links below to read all the articles I wrote for NQA:

QuiltCon 2015 (co-authored with Jacquie Gering)
Modern Machine Quilting
Embrace the Line
Filler Designs Add Texture
Handwork Makes a Comeback

Last Class of the Year is at Christmas Goose Quilt Shop in Las Vegas

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Local Vegas friends! I’ll be teaching my last machine quilting class of the year at the Christmas Goose Quilt Shop this Wednesday, Nov 16 from 6-9 PM. Stop by the shop or call 702-877-1158 to register. There’s only a few spots left!

Plumb Lines Machine Quilting Detail

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My version of Plumb Lines from The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting

I’m teaching Free-Motion Alternatives to Straight Line Quilting  from mine and Angela Walters’ book The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting. This class is already sold out at QuiltCon next year, so here’s your chance to get in on the action! Here’s the full class description:

“Go beyond the straight line and use your free-motion quilting skills to their fullest. In this workshop, students will learn how to turn basic shapes into linear free-motion quilting designs.Quilt them as allover designs across the surface of your quilt, or use them sporadically to create custom quilting motifs. Students should be comfortable with basic machine quilting techniques.”

Award Winning Quilting Techniques

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Plumb Lines earned a second place ribbon at HMQS earlier this year.

Although I can’t promise that your quilting will win an award, you’ll definitely get my seal of approval for learning how to let go of machine quilting perfection in my class. The secret to quilting success is to choose thin blending threads and quilt the heck out of it! Then all you will notice is the yummy quilted texture rather then each individual stitch.

Where I’ll be Traveling to Next

If you can’t make it to this class, click here for my complete teaching schedule. I keep it up to date for myself as well as my potential students. In fact, my family regularly checks my schedule so they know when I’m available for family trips! 🙂 I may just be traveling to a city near you!

**As always, thanks for your support! This post contains affiliate links.**

Machine Quilting with Style: Candy Pop Re-imagined

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Candy Pop is the 9th (out of 12) quilt patterned in my book Machine Quilting with Style. I was so happy to include a machine applique design. Truth be told, I really, really like machine applique and would love to one day do a book of modern machine applique designs. The problem? I can’t draw very well. But I can create easy geometric shapes like circles!

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Candy Pop 45″ x 45″ by Christa Watson. Photography by Brent Kane for Martingale.

If you cut carefully while making this design, you’ll have several pieces leftover that you can throw on the back. I love making artful pieced backings whenever I can!

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I love it when you can see the machine quilting on the back of the quilt!

Not only does Machine Quilting with Style include 12 beautiful modern quilt patterns. It also includes step by step instructions on how to quilt them. I think it is so important to show all aspects of making a quilt, from start to finish!

Candy Pop Re-imagined

I think I could recolor every design I’ve ever made into black and white and be a happy camper! For some reason, this version of candy pop reminds me of Chinese lanterns:

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Candy Pop, recolored in black, white and red using EQ7 software.

View the Rest of the Quilts

Click here to see the rest of the quilts from the book, along with more optional colorways made by my friends!

Machine Quilting With Style

Click here to get your signed copy of Machine Quilting with Style.

Giveaway Time!

First congratulations to Sherry C. and Laura M. for winning some Hoffman Batik fat quarters.
This week, I’m giving away a 4 pack of my individual quilt patterns. These are written in the same helpful style as the patterns in my books, and they also include machine quilting suggestions!

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Christa Quilts Patterns are available in print or PDF.

I’ll choose 2 winners: one person in the US will receive a printed version of each pattern, and one international winner will receive PDF’s of all 4 quilts patterns. To enter, leave a comment letting me know your favorite way to quilt your quilts – by hand, sit-down machine, long-arm machine, or even by check!

No matter how you finish, I’d love for you to share your quilting progress with me in my Facebook group: Quilt with Christa.

**I have to give a huge thanks to those of you who continue to support me and my family by purchasing my products. This post contains affiliate links. XOXO**

 

Book Publishing Q & A

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Recently at Fall Quilt Market, I participated in a presentation with Leah Day and Stephanie Palmer about getting our work published. Several of you who could not attend were interesting in getting access to the information we shared. Guess what? Leah recorded our presentation and turned it into a podcast over on her website at LeahDay.com.

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Stephanie, Leah and Christa having too much fun at Quilt Market Schoolhouse

To listen, just click the play button at the top of her page. She’s also included a written transcript if you want to follow along. The sound quality isn’t super great because of the room we were in, and I talk VERY fast. But it’s full of great info if you are interested in learning more.

And the best part is, Leah is planning on podcasting on a regular basis. I can’t wait to listen to the next one!

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Click here to listen to Hello My Quilting Friends, Leah’s New Podcast.

 

My Aurifil Thread Collections are Now Available

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One of the biggest reasons for going to quilt market this year was to launch my Piece and Quilt Thread Collection for Aurifil. This has been a dream of mine a couple of yeas in the making and it feels so great to finally share them with the world!
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Christa and Aurifil CBDO Alex Veronelli at Fall Quilt Market 2016

I first began using Aurifil 50 weight cotton back in 2013 after trying out numerous brands, thread weights, and fiber contents. After making dozens of quilts for publication and for family and friends, I can definitely say these threads are prefect for everything I do: piecing, machine quilting, machine applique, and binding.

My favorite thing about sticking with the 50 weight cotton for everything, is that I always have the right color on hand. Plus, any leftover bobbins from machine quilting can get used up when I piece my next scrappy quilt!

The Piece and Quilt Collection comes in both Colors and Neutrals and I really took my time choosing them. I wanted to make sure I offered enough variety that you could literally piece and quilt any quilt with just these two collections:
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Piece and Quilt Colors Include:

2425 Bright Pink
2250 Red
4020 Fuchsia
2520 Violet
2130 Medium Butter
1133 Bright Orange
2920 Light Brass
2884 Green Yellow
2886 Light Avocado
1148 Light Jade
2725 Light Wedgewood
2783 Medium Delft Blue

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Piece and Quilt Neutrals Include:

2311 Muslin
5021 Bamboo
1246 Dark Grey
5007 Light Grey Blue
2326 Sand
2372 Dark Antique Gold (Brown)
2315 Pale Flesh
2405 Oyster
2024 White
2615 Aluminium
2605 Grey
4241 Very Dark Grey

Color selection tips:

  1. When you don’t have an exact match, go a shade or two lighter with your thread. A lighter thread on a darker fabric will blend in better than a darker thread on a lighter fabric.
  2. Use very dark grey instead of black on black fabrics so you can see the texture of the thread rather than having it disappear.
  3. Use the darker neutrals when piecing dark or very highly saturated fabrics.
  4. Try out the lighter neutrals like oyster and bamboo (in addition to white and muslin) when piecing lighter to medium colored fabrics.

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Ask for my Piece and Quilt Collection at your favorite quilt shop, or get them directly from me at ThePrecutStore.com. I look forward to seeing what you make with them!

Machine Quilting with Style: Lightning Re-Imagined + Quilt Market Giveaway

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Lightning, from my book Machine Quilting with Style is one of three examples in the book of “structured” improv: my method of using improv techniques to randomly sew pieces together, then assembling them into a recognizeable block.

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Lightning 72″ x 96″ by Christa Watson. Photography by Brent Kane for Martingale.

The traditional rail fence was my starting point for Lightning. However, rather than using only the same 4-5 fabrics, I used a favorite colorscheme of scrappy black, white and gray, with pops of yellow and green to create the lightning streaks.

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I also created a secondary composition on the back with leftovers of many of the same fabrics I used in the top. My publisher, Martingale/That Patchwork Place was kind enough to create a free PDF download of the backing pattern.

Let’s play and see what happens when we substitute the yellow streaks with another popular color such as blue:

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Alternate colorway, designed in EQ7.

What if we use red for the flashpoints, and then choose only black and dark grays for the background:

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Alternate colorway, designed in EQ7.

As you can see, this is just the tip of the iceberg of possibilities!! Click here to see another version, made pretty in pink.

Quilt Market Giveaway!

Since I just returned from quilt market (more about that later), I thought it would be fun to share a little bit of swag with you. Hoffman fabrics gave me two of these fantastic fat quarter bundles from their Me + You batik collection. That means I get to select two winners this week!

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To enter, leave a comment letting me know if you’ve ever made a rail fence quilt before, and which bundle you would prefer to win – cool or warm. For a bonus entry, share your rail fence quilt in my Facebook group: Quilt with Christa. (US winners only, or willing to pay shipping if int’l.)

I’ll choose the winners next Thursday and share their names on next Friday’s post with the next re-imagined quilt from Machine Quilting with Style, and another giveaway! Lightning is the 8th quilt in the book, so that means there are only 4 more to recolor. I hope you are having as much fun seeing the alternate versions as I am!

Machine Quilting With Style

Click here to purchase a signed copy of Machine Quilting with Style.
Click here to see all of the quilts from the book.

Blog Hop – Quilts for Scrap Lovers by Judy Gauthier

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Today I’m excited to tell you about a new book from author Judy Gauthier, owner of Bungalow Quilting and Yarn in Wisconsin. I first met Judy when we were both panelists for a discussion about how to store your stash at QuiltCon earlier this year. (You may notice recognize a few of the people in the pic below – it was quite the panel!!)

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Left to right: Judy Gauthier, Rossie Hutchinson, Mary Fons, and me at QuiltCon 2016

During the discussion Judy mentioned how much she loved working with scraps. This all makes sense to me now, with the release of her book, Quilts for Scrap Lovers.

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Quilts for Scrap Lovers by Judy Gauthier

I never really considered myself much of a scrap quilter until I realized that I loved color-blocked quilts. A good example of color-blocking is shown on the cover quilt – Sunshine and Shadows, where a block is made from scraps of the same color. In order for scrap quilting to work effectively, Judy states that, “there must be a high degree of contrast between the colored and neutral fabrics.” I totally agree with that sentiment and Judy has done a fabulous job creating contrast in the 16 beautiful scrap quilts  contained in her book.

Let’s take a look at a few more of the lovely quilts from Quilts for Scrap Lovers:

house-divided

House Divided, 72″ x 82″

I think House Divided is a really clever design. Notice how the blocks can either look like houses, or  like modern arrows!I love it when negative space is used in the border, creating more white space around a design. This is definitely my favorite quilt in the book. I bet it was so fun to gather the scraps for this one!

modern-anvil

Modern Anvil, 53″ x 69″

Modern Anvil really floats my boat, too. Just look at all that low-volume scrappy goodness in the backgrounds! Those brightly colored anvil blocks with pops of color in the borders give this quilt lots of movement. It’s another effective example of high contrast fabrics.

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Chevron, given in Three Sizes

Judy’s Chevron quilt is another great example of color blocking. It’s also shows that you can make an effective scrappy quilt even when you don’t have any background at all. Her clever placement of color provides contrast in between each of the chevron stripes so that the design doesn’t get lost.

The golden rule of book-buying is that if you like at least three of the projects in a book, then it’s worth the price. Trust me, you will like ALL of the quilts in Judy’s book! I think my favorite part is in the front of the book where she includes lots of great tips on how to combine fabrics together.

The last thing I want to share with you is the introduction, set against the backdrop of another lovely house quilt included in the book. (Click the image for a larger view that’s easier to read):

introduction

Pick up a copy of Quilts for Scrap Lovers today!

Giveaway Time!

Judy’s publisher is generously giving away a copy of her book for each of the blogs on the book tour below. For your chance to win, leave a comment letting me know if you’d ever made a scrap quilt (or three). Winners will be chosen at the end of the week. Happy reading friends!

Nov 1 Christa Watson – You are here