Free Ebooks From Fave Quilts Including my FMQ Primer

September 9, 2013September 9, 201311 Comments

Fave Quilts is a fun website that features literally hundreds of free quilting patterns from dozens of different bloggers and designers. From time to time they have featured many of my blog tutorials both on their website and in their free eBooks.

The newest eBook they’ve published is called 17 Quilting Tutorials: Quilting for Beginners and Top Tips for How to Quilt. It includes my Intro to Free-Motion Quilting Tutorial along with tips on basting, applique, binding and more.

I was honored to be selected for inclusion in this eBook along with several other bloggers whom I’m sure you’ll recognize.

I was previously published in American Quilting Traditions: 11 Free Quilt Designs, Quilt Blocks and More Americana. My project in this compilation was my American Rails quilt tutorial, made for our wounded warriors.

You can get free downloads of both these eBooks along with links to hundreds, perhaps thousands of other fantastic quilting tutorials from FaveQuilts.com. Just beware of inspiration overload! 🙂

Craftsy Class Review: Dot to Dot Quilting by Angela Walters

August 20, 2013August 19, 201318 Comments

Dot to Dot Quilting is the 3rd in a series of online machine quilting classes by Angela Walters. Along with her other two classes, Machine Quilting Negative Space, and Free Motion Quilting with Feathers, Angela helps you to conquer your fear of machine quilting your own quilts.

Her warm, humorous manner along with her motto, “close enough is good enough” really put me at ease in this class. Even though she is a professional long arm quilter, Angela Walters teaches this class entirely on a domestic machine. Can we say “versatile”?

Dot to Dot Quilting is a way to quilt intricate designs on your quilt top with little to no marking, using points on the quilt as a guide.

Angela covers 3 of her favorite quilting motifs in this class (starbursts, lattice and diamonds), plus some cool FMQ variations for borders, sashing and blocks that create entirely different looks. In this class Angela shares how she thinks it’s easier to learn one design and tweak it 5 different ways, rather than learning 5 different designs. Clever!

After watching the first couple of lessons, I quickly quilted up these little diamond and starburst sample motifs, just to get the hang of it.

Dot to Dot Practice

Being able to watch Angela quilt “live” on video, then being able to pause and try it out immediately is an excellent way to learn. 🙂 I really like how I can go back and rewatch the segments again, to review what I just learned and make sure I really get it.

Here are a couple more quilting doodles I tried, to get a feel for the process. I just used some scraps I had lying around, quilting with whatever thread was in the machine.

Filling in the Diamonds

Because I enjoy learning and sharing free-motion quilting techniques, I appreciate it when Angela demonstrates things that I also teach, such as using a blending thread whenever possible. This allows you to see the quilting texture, rather than the stitches themselves.

Dot to Dot Quilting is broken down into 8 different segments of about 8 to 10 minutes each, plus an introduction at the beginning. This is a wonderful way to watch because for me personally, I only have about 10 minutes of uninterrupted free-time at any given point in the day!

More of Christa’s Quilt Doodles – This is Fun!

Angela first shows how to quilt the designs in roughly square shapes, then uses a variation on a theme to show how to fit the designs into other shapes, too. Her designs are very scale-able, which means you can quilt them in any block size, large or small. She shows how to quilt them in a regular, classic way, and then she changes it up by starting off-center, or in a corner. The possibilities are endless!

My favorite motif I quilted is this diamond star. I stitched it completely with my free-motion foot and no marking. 🙂

Christa’s Diamond Star, FMQ

Angela states that quilting is like handwriting – she can show you how to form the shapes, but it’s up to you on how you develop your own signature style.

At the end of the class, she shares tons of different examples of dot-to-dot quilting from quilts that she has finished. This was one of my favorite parts of the class – I love looking at all that quilting eye candy!

Angela Walters’ Dot to Dot Quilting

Angela includes a free sample pattern in the course materials along with stitching diagrams and quilting design variations. I recommend tracing them with your fingers or sketching them on a piece of paper before quilting to get your “muscle memory” flowing.

Another highlight of the class is reading the comments left by other class members as they watch. Both Angela and the other classmates are quick to answer the questions I have while watching. I highly recommend Dot to Dot Quilting!

New Angela Walters Class on Craftsy – Dot to Dot Quilting

August 14, 2013August 13, 20134 Comments

I am so excited that Angela Walters just launched a new online Craftsy class. I can’t get enough of her quilting! Her class is called Dot to Dot Quilting and I’ve already signed up for it and have watched the intro. Once I finish it, I’ll give a more indepth review like I did with her Quilting Negative Space class.

For now, here are a few highlights:

Angela demos machine quilting on a domestic machine, even though she professionally quilts on a long arm. No matter what type of machine you have, this class will work for you – whoo hoo! 🙂
She looks really comfortable in front of the camera with this class. I think she’s really found her groove teaching these classes online. (3 under her belt so far…)
Dot to Dot Quilting is a way to quilt interesting designs on your quilt with little or no marking using points on the quilt as a guide. What an awesome concept!
In class she will cover starburst, diamond, and lattice designs, plus lots of free motion variations.
She includes a free pattern in the class materials so that you can quilt along with her.
Angela assumes you have some basic experience with free-motion quilting and know how your machine works. This class can enhance your quilting skills and help take them to the next level.
Her philosophy is that quilting should be FUN and her quilting motto is, “close enough is good enough.” I couldn’t agree more…

If this has piqued your interest, you can sign up for Dot to Dot Quilting on Craftsy. Now I’m off to watch the rest of the class videos. I can already tell it’s going to be fun!

Favorite Tools – Painters Tape

August 6, 2013August 3, 201316 Comments

I have found one of my favorite nifty notions to use is a roll of blue painters’ tape! It’s low tack, so it will temporarily stick where I need it, but doesn’t leave any permanent residue.

It’s perfect to help tape down the edges of a quilt back when basting…

Use painters tape for basting.

And it recently came in handy when I was wanting to quilt rows of straight lines without marking. I cut a bunch of pieces off, laid them on the quilt and quilted right along the edge. Then, I was able to use the width of my quilting foot to quilt the remaining lines.

Tape for Quilting Straight Lines

I love it when I can use up cheap supplies that are just lying around the house!

A Few Words About Judged Quilts Part 1 – The Beginning of a Journey

June 10, 2013June 17, 201316 Comments

I’ve had a few people ask me to go into detail about some of the comments I’ve received for quilts I’ve entered into quilt shows. I thought that would make a pretty good blog topic! It will take more than one post to explore this idea, so be sure to follow my blog for updates.

First, here’s a little background – I’ve been quilting off and on over the last 18 years, but up until this year have previously entered my quilts only in local shows. I have received my share of ribbons in this time and have earned a variety of critiques, most of which I never thought about keeping for “quilt posterity”.

Christa’s Quilt Ribbons – and one for Jenna!

I’m getting smarter now about keeping all the documentation relating to my work. I’ve also realized that if I want to enter my quilts in shows I’ve got to be able to take the heat, even if I don’t agree with a judge’s comments (but for the most part, good or bad, I do see their point!)

So here goes, I’ll start with some of my earliest competitive quilts and work my way forward. I don’t have the judge’s comments but I’ll share what I remember.

This mini quilt was the very first thing I ever entered, way back in 1997 – can you believe it? It was for a guild challenge and all that I remember was that we were supposed to use a a basket, a heart, and a flower.

It’s one of the very few hand quilted pieces I’ve done and my first attempt at mitering corners. Now I only use straight borders and I machine quilt all of my quilts. ‘Nuff said! But I did earn a second place from a vote of the members so that was my first taste of “competition”. I just ate it up!

Over the years I started getting better at my machine quilting and was pleased when my pieced heart quilt won a second place at my traditional guild’s annual show in 2002. I enjoyed adding lots of detailed quilting which has kind of set the stage for my style of quilting – more is more!

The big mistake that I made on this quilt was using too many busy prints, so that all my fabulous quilting was hard to notice! You just can’t see the gorgeous cabled border I quilted in metallic threads (really!) Hmm, maybe that’s why I’m so fond of solids now?

The 2002 quilt show was a banner year for me – nearly every thing I entered won a ribbon. I finally landed a first place with my original Hugs and Kisses. (I did a remake of this quilt recently for one of my quilt alongs). I remember only one written comment from the judge – “I love this quilt!” That made my day until I realized this quilt was the only one in it’s category.

This was the first year our guild started separating out professionally machine quilted quilts into their own category. Since I was definitely NOT a professional and I quilted this one myself, there was no competition in the home-machine quilted category, LOL!! But we’ve come a long way and more members are machine quilting their own quilts, for which I’m very proud! (And the organizers told me a judge won’t give it a blue ribbon unless the quilt deserves it – regardless of the number of entries).

Next, I got into my applique phase and won a couple of 1st place ribbons for these appliqued beauties. They were fun to make but since I followed a pattern, they weren’t exactly originals.

You can see I was definitely a traditionalist here but these quilts are where I realized my techniques – small machine button hole stitches with matching thread and lots of quilting. Now to translate these techniques into more modern quilt designs!

After this I kind of took a break for about 8 years where I didn’t enter hardly anything. Sure, I taught a lot of quilting classes, made tons of samples and got into stipple-overload. I also started my fabric business, but the competition side of me really waned. I also sold quilts at a local craft mall for several years. This threw me into mass-production mode which really stifled my artistic spirit!

Tune in next Monday for part 2 of this (breathtaking) saga!

Christa’s Soapbox – Faster Doesn’t Always Mean Better

March 4, 2013March 19, 201328 Comments

Since attending QuiltCon last month, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to quality versus quantity. As a shop owner, I feel a certain drive to sell as much fabric as possible, as quickly as possible, to support my family.

Busy Hands Quilting

This means attendingallthestradehows and makingallthequiltkits and meetingnewdesigners and findingasmanyfunnewpatterns as I can.

This can lead to quite a hectic life at a frenetic pace, with not as much time for personal fulfillment.

My hands are so busy with so many things, that, as a quilter, there’s a part of me that needs to slow…..things….. down!

I have been contemplating what I feel is turning into the fast-food-ization of quilting. We all love to sew and complete a project, but how much of the creative process is being lost in the rush to get things finished?

Yes, I know there’s a time and a place for the last minute baby shower quilt or Christmas present.

But the rest of the year, why don’t we focus on making quality quilts, whether or not they can be completed in a day?

The workmanship at QuiltCon, Road to California, and other top-notch shows inspires me to make good quality work and to hopefully share more of that with you.

Hugs ‘N Kisses

If you have followed along with any of my Quilt Alongs from the beginning, you will notice that I have started adding more tutorials over a longer period of time.

This is a project I have committed to doing on a long-term basis so that I can inspire you to make a quilt from start to finish. My joy is full when I see more of you completing your own quilts!

Although I will still be offering quilt kits for many of them as a convenience, starting this week you will begin to notice more customization and tips on how to truly make it your own.

Going forward, Jason and I have big plans to not only expand our store, but to get back to the roots of what attracted me to quilting in the first place: making a unique hand-crafted work of art!

Christa Quilts!

The Finished Quilt That Wasn’t

January 14, 2013March 19, 201317 Comments

I really thought this quilt was finished. But then I realized it wasn’t. So now it qualifies as my latest UFO. I enjoyed making this quilt and I like the quilting on it, but I don’t love it – it’s just not enough. After the last project I quilted the heck out of, I am starting to find my personal quilting style. It’s one that requires a lot of quilting. And I mean A LOT.

So I will add many more lines of quilting to this quilt. The original pass of straight line quilting only took about 2 hours to do and I was so happy to finish it so quickly. But now that it’s been sitting around for awhile it’s calling to me for more. So I will add more.

I decided to fill in the lines of quilting with more lines. I marked all of the original lines about 2 inches apart so I could quilt them neatly with my walking foot. Fortunately the “filler” lines do not need to be marked; I simply used the edge of my walking foot as a guide and can fit exactly 3 more rows of quilting in between each original line of stitching.

After about 2 more hours of quilting I’m about halfway done and I think it’s looking much better. FYI, I used Superior King Tut cotton thread in a variegated blue (in top and bobbin – my stitches seem to balance out better when using the same weight on both sides).

And now for the soapbox part of this post – it’s ok to make a quilt just because you want to. I have no idea what I will eventually do with this quilt. I may give it away. I may keep it as a teaching sample. I may turn it into a pattern. I originally made it as a tutorial and still have a few kits left with the same fabrics.

It was really nice to not have to rush off and send this quilt off somewhere as soon as (I thought) it was done. So that’s why I can “finish” it now – because there are no deadlines and it needs more quilting.

What I enjoy most about this quilt is that quilting it makes me happy. There are lots more quilts out there that I have to make, just because I want to – with no end purpose in mind. And that’s OK. Really it is. How liberating!

Here is the same Baby Bricks quilt design a pink version. And yes, I think it needs more quilting, too…. Any suggestions??

Sew and Tell and Giveaway Winners!

November 26, 2012December 1, 2012121 Comments

I quilted all weekend on my Charming Chevrons quilt and am really pleased with the progress so far. It was pure bliss to sew for hours on end while my hubby entertained the kiddos with movies and games. But more about that later. Here’s a sneak peek, and I’ll post more pictures on this week’s Do-It-Yourself Quilt Along.

Diana, AKA Quilting Grandma sent me a picture of her version of Charming Chevrons, made from Berenstain Bears Charm Packs. Aren’t the colors just wonderful?? I love how she added the extra borders, and her choice of solid green for the background is just awesome!

And I couldn’t resist sharing this picture of Martha from Illinois, modeling her Machingers Quilting Gloves on her new Tiara machine. I have to say I’m a little bit jealous of all that quilting space under the machine!

That got me to thinking, wouldn’t it be fun to win some of my favorite gadgets and quilting tools I talk about? Since I just reviewed Machingers Gloves last week, I’m going to give two lucky readers each a pair of gloves to try out.

It’s easy to enter, simply post a comment (any comment) and you’ll be entered to win. I’ll randomly select 2 winners and post their names here on the blog. I’ll also notify them via email. Contest ends this Friday, November 30th at 9PM Pacific Time (Midnight Eastern).

Good luck!

Updated November 30th, 9:30 PM

Thank you all for participating. This was a fun contest to run and all of the comments were much appreciated! We now have our winners!

The first winner, drawn at random is:

Judith:

November 26, 2012 at 10:53 pm

Right now, I’m using a pair of slightly textured gardening gloves. The disadvantage is that they’re fairly bulky and not particularly grippy. The advantage is that I can blame any quilting gaffes on the gloves ;-) Thanks for the great giveaway opportunity.

The second winner, also drawn at random is

Evelyn H:

November 28, 2012 at 1:16 am

I haven’t done your Chevron quilt, but I made the Jolly Jelly Roll. I love that pattern. I would love a pair of the quilting gloves, which are on my Christmas wish list! Thanks for doing this and for your fun tutorials.

Congratulations, ladies! I will be emailing you shortly with your winning prize!

Christa’s Quilt Along 1.5 – Machine Quilting

August 15, 2012August 15, 201323 Comments

This week’s post is the one I’ve been waiting for. I think machine quilting is the best part of making a quilt, so I couldn’t wait to get my Vintage Modern jelly roll quilt top finished and basted so I could start the fun! I quilted it using a serpentine stitch with my walking foot.

Before I started quilting, I tried out a few of my machine’s decorative stitches to see how they would look. All of these can be done using a walking foot with the feed dogs engaged.

I used a 40 weight high-sheen polyester thread with a size 90 needle and used the same thread for both the top and bobbin.

This gives better results than using different colored threads.

Step 1 – Decorative Ditch Quilting

Be sure your needle plate has a wide enough opening to accommodate your decorative stitch and test it out first so you avoid broken needles.

Quilt along the seam lines in one direction in between your blocks, about 4 inches apart. The first pass took me 30 minutes.

This will secure the quilt and you can remove the pins as you go.

Next, make second pass in between each line of quilting. Now your quilting is about 2 inches apart and the quilt is starting to get some texture! I quilted parallel lines across the quilt. I did not mark any of these lines – I just used the seams as a guide and eyeballed it across the fabric where there was no seam to guide me. This is both liberating and fun!

This second pass took another 30 minutes so I’m just at 1 hour total quilting time. Not bad! At this point, this is enough quilting to hold your quilt together. However, I want more…

Step 2 – Adding More Quilting

My motto is that you can never add too much quilting to a quilt!

So I added another line of quilting in between each of the rows above. This was my 3rd pass and now the quilting lines are about 1 inch apart.

This took only another 30 minutes and I can’t believe how fast this is going!

There is still enough room to add another row of quilting and do a fourth pass, so I decided, what the heck?

The fourth pass took 1 1/2 hours because I had now doubled the amount of quilting on the quilt, but I loved every minute of it!

I ended up with quilting lines about 1/2 inch apart over the surface of the quilt. Total quilting time was 3 hours and I used up a full 500 yard spool of Superior Highlights thread.

I love all the texture on the back!

So next week, we will finish our quilts, can you believe it? We will trim them up and bind to finish. I really can’t wait to see how everyone’s quilting turns out. Be sure to email me pictures of your progress, no matter where you are, so I can share with everyone else.

Here is the complete Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt-Along Schedule:

Week 1 – Supply List

Week 2 – Sewing the Blocks

Week 3 – Completing the Top

Week 4 – Backing and Basting

Week 5 – Machine Quilting

Week 6 – Machine Binding to Finish

Favorite Tools #6 – Needles

August 14, 2012March 19, 20133 Comments

Since we will be quilting our Jolly Jelly Roll quilts this week, I thought it was an appropriate time to talk about sewing machine needles. Needles are often the least expensive but one of the most important components of making a successful quilt!

If your needle is old, bent, or flawed, it will make quilting much more difficult. Often times when you think thread or tension is the problem, it may actually be your needle!

My favorite needles to use for both piecing and quilting are Superior’s Titanium Coated needles. They come in a variety of sizes and work wonderfully. There are a lot of different types of needles out there – really more than you need.

The titanium needles are perfect for sewing, piecing, machine applique, and machine quilting. They work well with metallic threads, too. So forget about having different needles for different purposes, ie: universal, ball point, sharp, or metallica needles. Just stick with the titanium topstitch needles for everything and all you have to think about is which size to use. They last much longer than most of the other brands, too.

So how do you know which sized needle to use? It depends on your thread. The titanium needles come in 4 sizes – 70/10; 80/12; 90/14; 100/16. They have a much larger eye which allows the thread to pass through with less tension and therefore fewer thread breaks.

Size 70 needles are for very fine threads such as 60 weight cotton or polyester, monofilament, #100 and silk threads. I use these with silk thread for machine applique that blends into my quilts.

Size 80 needles are for for fine threads such as 50 weight cotton or polyester. I use these for piecing quilts together and sometimes for allover stippling with cotton thread that blends into the top.

Size 90 needles are for medium threads such as 40 weight cotton or polyester. This is the also the needle I use for decorative threads and metallics. The thread does not shred!!

Size 100 needles are for heavier weight cotton or polyester threads. I’ve only used these needles once so far when I quilted with a 30 weight variegated thread. It worked like a charm with no thread breaks or skipped stitches!

I use the 80’s & 90’s most often in my everyday piecing and quilting. Since these needles last for a long time I can usually piece and quilt a medium throw sized quilt with just one needle.

I’m still not convinced that Superior Threads offers my favorite thread, however. You can read my opinion about the company here on my soapbox, but I do love their needles!