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:

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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!

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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

Latest Finish – Nested Pinwheels Quilt and Podcast Interview

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Earlier in the year, my friend Becky from Patchwork Posse invited me to design a small project exclusively for her subscription based online quilt group.

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Nested Pinwheels 27″ x 27″ by Christa Watson

I came up with Nested Pinwheels, shown above. It’s a great design to practice one of my favorite walking foot quilting designs, the large continuous spiral. I teach how to do this design in both of my machine quilting books.

The trick is to mark the center spiral and then use your walking foot to quilt the entire thing – using the edge of the foot as your guide for consistent spacing.

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Your starting spiral doesn’t have to look perfect!

Along with this project, Becky interviewed me for about 20 minutes talking about my adventures in quilting. You all know that  machine quilting is my favorite part of making a quilt!

photo-3I use the integrated dual feed on my BERNINA – it does the same thing as a walking foot!

Click the link below to learn more about my Nested Pinwheel quilt, read my interview and to listen to the podcast. (You can listen to it directly from your computer, about halfway down the page.)

Click here to listen to the Patchwork Posse guest designer podcast.

 

It’s Quilt Market Time! My Schedule of Events for Fall 2016

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This week kicks off the “busy season” for the quilting industry. International Quilt Market, the semi-annual quilting industry trade show, will be held in Houston, Texas this coming Friday–Monday.

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Jason meeting with our Moda sales rep at Spring Market. What he ordered then is in stock now!

Jason and I will be attending together although we will have very different responsibilities. My job will be to promote my books, network with other industry professionals, and be on the lookout for future collaborations. His job is to scout out new products for The Precut Store and place orders with vendors for the next 6 months.

angela_christa_bookAngela Walters and I will be promoting our book this fall with a Live Quilting Demo!

Angela Walters and I will be reprising our role as “dueling quilters” to help promote our book, The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting. We’ll do two live quilting demos: on Saturday at 11 AM in the Handi Quilter booth and at 3 PM in the BERNINA booth. Angela is a spokesperson for Handi Quilter, and I’m a BERNINA ambassador, so it will be fun to each quilt on
the other company’s machines, as well as the ones we are used to!

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I will also be presenting a take and teach class on Saturday morning to Shop owners, sharing with them hands on machine quilting demos that they can use when teaching from my first book, Machine Quilting with Style. The class is full (which makes me super happy!) but there are plenty of classes taught by others that you can sign up for if you plan to attend.

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Angela and Christa at Schoolhouse, Spring 2016 Quilt Market

Quilt Market officially opens to buyers on Saturday, but the day before is spent in “Schoolhouse” – a series of 15-30 minute sessions where authors, makers and designers will be sharing their latest and greatest up close and personal.

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Leah Day and I first met in person at Quilt Market in 2014. She’s super fun and knowledgeable!

On Friday at 4:55 in Room 362 D, Leah Day, Stephanie Palmer and I have teamed up to present a session on book publishing for those interested in learning more about the process. Sponsored by Leah’s fabric company Island Batik, we’ll be sharing our varied experiences with both self-publishing and traditional publishing. It should be very informative!

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Stephanie will be sharing her experiences on self-publishing The Quilter’s Planner.

Throughout the rest of the show I’ll be walking the floor, networking with other industry professionals, and meeting with other companies in the industry to collaborate on future ideas. It will be quite a whirlwind of activity, but I know I’ll come home ready to start on the next big idea!! If you happen to be there, be sure to grab me to say hi – I’d love to see you and chat!

Machine Quilting with Style: Focal Point Re-Imagined + A Secret Revealed

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Focal Point was such a fun design to both piece and quilt! I made it specifically for my book Machine Quilting with Style as part of my quest to go more modern with my designs. I remember attending a lecture by Heather Grant at the very first QuiltCon in 2013. She gave us several great tips on how to go more modern. Two of my favorites used in this quilt are asymmetry and cropping your design. Later once I got to know Jacquie Gering, she reminded me to make sure my modern quilts always had a “focal point.”

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Christa with Focal Point at QuiltCon 2016. Quilt Measures 45″ x 45″.

I was thrilled to be able to share Focal Point at QuiltCon earlier this year and of course, I had to take the obligatory “here’s the quilt from my book pic!”

More Neutrals

I used Amy Ellis’ fabric to make the original version of the quilt. Her debut line was called Modern Neutrals which I thought was so appropriate for the quilt. When her next line, Chic Neutrals came out around the same time as the book I thought it would be fun to recolor it using those fabrics. (She’s since released a third line which I think would be just as fab!)

Focal Point - Chic Neutrals no lines

Focal Point recolored in EQ7 with Chic Neutrals by Amy Ellis for Moda

For another color idea, I thought I’d take you behind the scenes a bit. Many times when I’m designing, I’ll go through tons of different color iterations until I find the one that’s just right. Focal point actually started out in this icy blue colorway, before I applied Amy’s fabrics to it:

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Focal point in classic blue and white.

I once heard it said that you know you have a good design on your hands when it can look good in any fabrics. Hopefully that’s how you all will feel when making the quilts from my books! 🙂

A Secret Revealed and a Giveaway!

It’s always fun to reveal secrets when sharing my books and patterns. Now I have another big announcement I can finally share. I’m an Aurifil thread designer! This week, Aurifil debuted my brand new line, The Piece and Quilt thread collection.

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It’s a line of 24 threads in 50 weight cotton: 12 Neutrals and 12 Colors. These are my favorite threads that I use for every part of  quilt making: piecing, quilting and binding! In fact, the light gray that I used to quilt Focal Point is included in the neutrals collection.

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To celebrate the one year birthday of my first book, and now my debut thread collection, you can win them before you can buy them!! To win a 12 pack of the neutrals, leave a comment here at my site, letting me know what your go-to thread colors are.

To win a 12 pack of the colors, head over to the Auribuzz blog and follow the intructions over there. Due to shipping limitations, this giveaway is open to all of my US friends. Be sure and ask for these by name at your favorite quilt shop – they’ll be arriving soon!

Last Week’s Winner

Last but not least, I’d like to congratulate Zina C. who won a copy of EQ Mini. I’m sure she’ll be able to put this software to good use!! Next week is quilt market so I won’t have another book post. But come back in 2 weeks for another winner and another re-imagined quilt!

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

Quilt As Desired Article 4: Handwork Makes a Comeback

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Today I’m continuing to share the 5 part series of articles that I originally wrote for the National Quilting association as part of my Quilt as Desired column. This article first appeared in the Summer 2015 issue of the Quilting Quarterly.

Click here to read the other machine quilting articles I’ve written. Happy reading!

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Machine Quilting with Style: Square in a Square Re-Imagined

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Square in a Square is my second favorite quilt from my book Machine Quilting with Style. (Click here to find out which one is my favorite.) I really tried to play with alternate grids and negative space when I designed this quilt. I combined two of my go-to motifs when quilting it: free-motion boxes and walking foot square spirals. I love that it includes a bit of both methods I teach in the book.

Square in a Square is currently being exhibited in the modern category of the Pacific International Quilt Festival and it hung at Road to California earlier in the year. I love entering my quilts into shows so they can be seen by a wider audience. 🙂

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Square in a Square 60″ x 60″ by Christa Watson. Photography by Brent Kane for Martingale.

Imagine the Possibilities

My BQF (Best Quilting Friend) Stacy from Farm Road Quilts made this fun version which is is just perfect for Halloween! During the original blog hop a year ago, a bunch of my friends each remade one of the quilts from the book. Click here to see all of the variations – they are so fun!

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Square in a Square made by Stacy Cooper of Farm Road Quilts.

I design all of my quilts in EQ7 and I have embraced my inner control freak that needs to know exactly what it’s going to look like even before I begin, LOL!! So here are a couple more fun variations that I came up with, using Amanda Murphy’s playful Sewing Room collection for Benartex.

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I think using the light gray background is probably more my style, but I wanted to push the envelope and see how fun and it would look using the sewing machine fabric as the background combined with funky bright solids.

Click here to get some of this fun fabric!!

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Do you recognize what kind of sewing machine that is? Amanda is a BERNINA ambassador just like me, so I’m sure that influenced her artwork. Hmmm. maybe a smaller version of this would make a perfect sewing machine cover for my BERNINA!! 🙂

Giveaway Time! Win EQ Mini!!

Speaking of designing in EQ7, my good friends at The Electric Quilt Company recently released their latest software, EQ Mini. It’s a scaled down, less expensive version of EQ. It’s perfect for anyone who wants to get their feet wet designing their own quilts, but isn’t sure where to start.

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One winner will receive either a boxed physical copy or an email code to download directly from the website, so that means this giveaway is open to everyone! To enter, leave a comment letting me know if you’ve ever designed your own quilt. For a bonus entry, share a picture of it in my Facebook group at Quilt with Christa.

And now it’s time to congratulate last week’s winner’s, Bec B. and Sharon T. who each won a copy of 180 Doodle Quilting Designs. It’s been so fun to read all of your comments each week and see the quilts you are making!

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.

Quilt As Desired Article 3: Filler Designs Add Texture

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Today I’m continuing to share the series of machine quilting articles that I originally wrote for the National Quilting association as part of my Quilt as Desired column. This article first appeared in the Spring 2015 issue of the Quilting Quarterly.

Click here to read the other machine quilting articles I’ve written.

Happy reading!

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Machine Quilting with Style: Static Re-Imagined

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Static is by far the simplest quilt to make from my book Machine Quilting with Style. It’s my tongue in cheek version of a pixelated quilt design because there’s nothing to see in the “static.” 🙂 Here’s the original version, created in a simple palette of pink, purple, and yellow. Although I used yardage for my version, it’s very jelly roll friendly since the blocks are all made from 2 1/2″ wide strips.

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Static 56″ x 64″ by Christa Watson. Photography by Brent Kane.

Colorful Static

When it came time to recolor this graphic quilt, I decided to try out two extreme variations. The first is using Tula Pink’s True Colors, a line of basics meant to coordinate with her wilder print collections. The blocks are rotated haphazardly to give the random static-looking appearance as shown in the original pattern. I must say, I kind of like this version even better than the original; I’m a sucker for bright color!

Static Tula Pink

Colorful Static – Using Tula Pink’s True Colors for FreeSpirit

Black and White Static

No surprises here – I had to design a black and white version, too! For this one, I didn’t rotate the blocks and I like the subtle pattern it gives to the overall design. Now I must add this to my collection of black and white quilts! I used Thicket by Gingiber for Moda for this colorway.

Static Black and White

Black and White Static – Using Thicket by Gingiber for Moda

Isn’t it fun to play with extremes? You can find precut strips for both True Colors and Thicket (plus tons of other options) at my alter ego location: ThePrecutStore.com.

Celebration Giveaway

It’s been so fun choosing winners and giving away yummy prizes each week as we celebrate the one year birthday of my first book. So let’s first congratulate last week’s winner Elizabeth R. who won a 3 charm pack prize pack from The Precut Store.

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This week, two winners will each receive a copy of 180 Doodle Quilting Designs, (one physical copy, one e-copy) of which I’m pleased to be included along with 8 other contributors. Truth be told, after writing 2 books back to back, it’s been fun to participate in several compilation books with other fabulous designers. (Ahem – more about those coming soon!!)

To enter, leave a comment below telling me about the easiest quilt you’ve ever made. For a bonus entry, share a picture of it in my Facebook Group at Quilt with Christa.

View Even More Colorways

When I originally celebrated the release of Machine Quilting with Style, a dozen friends joined me by each remaking one of the quilts in the book in their choice of fabrics.

Click here to see them all!

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The original quilts from Machine Quilting with Style, pieced and quilted by yours truly.

And hey, it’s totally okay if you like a some of the alternate versions better. Shh don’t tell, but I do, too, LOL!!!

Quilt As Desired Article 2: Embrace the Line

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This week I’m sharing my Quilt as Desired article which was originally published in the winter 2014 issue of Quilting Quarterly magazine from the National Quilting Association. I’ve changed the original formatting to better fit the blog format. You can purchase a PDF pattern for Mini Churn Dash from my Craftsy store.

Mini_patternMini Churn Dash along with the pattern originally published in the magazine.
Click here to purchase Mini Churn Dash pattern  for just $4.95.

“Making a mini quilt is a great way to explore a new design style. It’s also a fun excuse to give machine quilting a try. The time and material investment are minimal, and it’s easy enough to quilt a mini on nearly any sewing machine you can think of.

“However, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when quilting a mini: (1) the quilting should not overwhelm the piecing design and (2) the scale of the quilting should be in proportion to the rest of the quilt.

“When making my Mini Churn Dash  I knew I wanted to apply the two principles listed above, as well as include an element of modern machine quilting to the piece. Straight-line quilting has been an extremely popular way to add texture to full sized quilts, and I hoped this quilting design would look great on a modern mini. As with any quilt I make, I first drew up a practice sketch to audition my design:

Straight Line Quilting
“I quilted the parallel lines in an asymmetrical pattern, using tape as a guide to vary the width of the spacing between quilting lines, anywhere from 1/8” to 1/2” apart. I used a shorter than normal stitch length to keep the quilting in scale with the quilt.

Straight Line Quilting
I quilted additional straight lines using the edge of my even-feed (walking) foot as a guide, changing the needle position to vary the width of the spacing. I kept quilting until it felt “finished”. I used a thin cotton thread in a light grey color that seemed to blend in to the background rather than play a starring role.

Straight Line Quilting
“You can quilt asymmetrical lines using other designs such as wavy lines, or decorative stitches on your sewing machine. So the next time you are stumped when quilting a modern mini, just think of what kinds of textures you can create, starting with a simple line!

Click here to read the other machine quilting articles I’ve written.