In this week’s episode of 99 Machine Quilting Designs, practice free motion quilting more “shapes on a stick” like Balloon Shapes and Shish Kebabs. Click below to watch and learn:
I made this quilt before I started making video tutorials, but it’s a great one to practice these designs! The Block Chain quilt pattern includes a quilting plan showing you how and it’s perfect for your favorite charm packs!
Right now, my Gridwork charm packs shown in the quilt above are on sale for way below the retail price. I’ve also reduced the price of many of my earlier fabric lines, and they are only available while supplies last!
As you practice your machine quilting designs on samples, or real quilts, be sure to share what you’ve made over in my Christa Quilts Group on Facebook. Fellow members and I would love to cheer you on!!
How are your Beaded Lanterns quilt blocks coming along? It’s time to sew them together to create the quilt top! If you are just now finding the quilt along, be sure to grab the Beaded Lanterns free quilt pattern to join the fun!
To start things off, I like to lay out my blocks on a design wall. Then I’ll spend time arranging them into a pleasing order. I usually take a picture with my camera phone to refer to while sewing.
Once that’s done, I’ll make a stack of blocks to sew in order and then chain piece, or assembly line sew them all at once. I always start sewing with a leader/ender piece of scrap fabric to catch my threads. This prevents them from knotting up when I start and stop.
It makes a beautiful mess and I love the feeling of accomplishment!
I’ll sew all of the blocks together into rows and then continue using my design wall to lay it out as I join the rows together. I press after every round of sewing to keep things nice and flat.
As you can sew I prefer to press all my seams open. This ensures flat blocks, flat rows, and a very flat quilt top which will make machine quilting so much easier! I sew with a short stitch length (2.0) so that nothing comes apart while handling.
I pin generously as I sew to keep things from shifting. Because my seams are pressed open, I’m not pinning right into the intersection. Instead I will pin on either side of the seams I want to match up and I get really clean joins and matching points this way.
Finally, I add the borders and give the quilt top a final press! Notice the bit of patchwork on the design wall below. I sewed together some leftovers into strip units and I’ll start using those on the back.
Coming up next: I’ll need to piece the quilt backing, baste the layers and quilt the quilt, so stay tuned for more! Click the links below to catch up on any of the previous steps:
Read through the free quilt pattern for instructions on sewing everything together. To keep the blocks nice and straight I sewed with the light background fabric on top each time. I also sewed with a shorter stitch length (2.0) to strengthen the seams and then pressed them open for incredibly flat blocks.
I like to chain sew or assembly line stitch which means slipping each pair of units to sew under the machine and sewing continuously without breaking thread in between. Here’s my first run through after I added the lighter background to the sides of each lantern unit:
I sew as many units together as possible, then cut them all apart, press the units, then continue chain piecing until the entire block is sewn. It creates quite a beautiful mess by the time I’m done but it’s a quick and efficient way to sew!
This block is very simple because it’s two of the same halves sewn together. I used the same fabric for each Lantern unit. But you could absolutely go super scrappy if you wanted to! The trick is to make sure you are sewing with accurate 1/4″ seams so that each unit ends up the same size.
I press each seam as I go and then press the final block front and back when I’m finished. The reason I do this is so that the blocks and quilt top will lie flat for domestic machine quilting. I’m always thinking about how the piecing will affect the quilting and vice versa!
I love having a yummy pile of freshly sewn bocks! Aren’t they pretty?
Don’t forget to make the square blocks in addition to the lantern blocks! If you don’t already have a copy of the free quilt pattern, you can grab it below, along with the optional kit in 3 colorways:
Sew all of the blocks so they are ready to make the quilt top. Share pics of your progress and feel free to ask for any help you need over in my Christa Quilts Group on Facebook!
This week it’s time to cut into your yummy fabrics as we begin to make Beaded Lanterns. If you haven’t done so yet, be sure to download my free Beaded Lanterns Quilt pattern to follow along. Now, let’s get started!
You’ll need a total of 36 precut strips from a standard sized strip roll. Using my Dazzle Dots 2 roll shown above, I took out 2 strips of the ice blue color because it was the same as the background and I didn’t want a “hole” in my quilt. I also took out the 2 white strips since it had the least amount of contrast. That left me with a total of 18 colors, 2 strips of each. Perfect!
Follow the pattern instructions on page 2 to cut out your individual units for each block, plus cutting up the 4 yards of background fabric (which includes the binding). To speed up the cutting, I layered 2 strips of each color (4 layers of fabric), and cut through several stacks of strips at one time.
I prefer to cut out all of my units to the correct size first, before sewing. After many years of trial and error, I’ve found that my units are much more accurate this way.
I plan to set aside the leftovers after cutting, and then piece them into the backing. This is totally optional, but it’s a fun way to personalize your quilt!
Ta-Da! All of my pieces are cut and ready to sew into blocks for next week!
Now it’s your turn to share. You can share your work in progress on social media using #beadedlanternsqal. Or you can post pics and ask questions over in my Christa Quilts Facebook group.
I’m excited to share my step-by-step process for quilting my latest iteration of Bling. This is one of my favorite patterns I’ve made over the years. Whenever I get a new idea for a fun colorscheme or quilting plan, I can’t help remaking some of my most popular patterns! Click below to watch and let me know what you think!
You can choose a similar color story and layout, or you can switch things up and make it your own! The last few times I’ve made this quilt, I chose scrappy backgrounds, but you can also use one fabric for the background and it looks just as good. Hmmm, maybe you’ll want to make more than one like I did??
I always like to kit up a quilt when I make it because I know others will like it too. However, these are only available for a limited time, as long as the fabrics are in print. Enjoy some beauty shots of this quilt that I took while on a recent beach vacation. It was a nice cloudy day, and seeing these pics brings back great memories!
I had just as much fun making the pieced backing and using up a bunch of leftover Dazzle Dots!
This week for 99 Machine Quilting Designs we are learning to quilt Triangle Texture, a design that’s great for modern OR traditional quilts! Watch below and let me know what you think!
Get the Surplus Strips Quilt Pattern or Kit I recently combined 2 motifs – boxes and triangles on the gray version of my Surplus Strips quilt! You can now grab the kit to make this quilt with the gray or white background, or grab the pattern and choose your own colors. It’s fun to make and fun to quilt!
If you’d like to choose your own adventure, grab the Surplus Strips quilt pattern and then rummage through your stash for the perfect colors to make it your own. It’s the perfect design for using up leftover (surplus) precut strips!!
Below are 2 versions I made a few years ago and it looks great no matter what!
I’ve been working on a remake of my popular Color Weave quilt. I realized that I don’t create a ton of new patterns each year and I really like remaking some of my classics! It’s been super fun to create it from my current fabric collection, Dazzle Dots (#9 if you are counting). Originally I made this quilt using my Abstract Garden fabric line (#3) which is shown on the pattern cover below. Don’t they look similar?
I spray baste all of my quilts, so I took the opportunity of creating a step-by-step video tutorial showing how I did this on my Color Weave quilt. Click the image below to watch:
For a limited Time, you can grab a complete Color Weave quilt kit if you’d like to make one exactly like me, using Dazzle Dots. Or you can grab the Color Weave quilt pattern and choose your own fabrics for a different look. You can make this quilt from pre-cut strips, fat quarters, or even scraps. The hard part is trying to make just one!!
I was recently unpacking from my latest quilty travels and as I was putting my quilts away, I realized I’ve made 5 different versions of the same quilt. How does that even happen?? LOL!! So today I thought it would be fun to share all of them together in one post, plus a few more bonus ideas!!
The original version of Bling shown above was created for a magazine and originally came in one size only. I made it to showcase an earlier fabric line that’s now out of print and wanted to quilt it fairly quickly with a simple wavy walking foot grid design.
As I was designing this quilt I started playing around with different layouts and fabric placement. I love the version below which I call “Trinket Boxes.” I haven’t made it….yet, but it’s still on my “to make” list one day!!
Once the pattern rights reverted back to me, I created a version of my Bling pattern that now includes multiple sizes. This time I made two more versions of Bling to showcase another colorful fabric collection I had designed. I wanted to demonstrate how the same bright fabrics can pop against either a very dark OR very light background as shown below:
With the release of the stand-alone quilt pattern, I also include a few alternate layout ideas. I love how the same design can look so different, just by rotating all the blocks! All of the images below are included in the current version of this pattern.
I was really intrigued by the Hashtags layout above. Next, I wanted to explore how it could look if the colors were a little more unified rather than completely random. So when it was time to release my Black, White & Bright collection, I made a 4th version where all of the hashtags were made from the same fabric in each block. I also went scrappy in for the backgrounds, too.
When people see this version, they can’t believe it’s the exact same pattern!!
Finally, I made a 5th version of Bling to showcase my Stitchy fabric collection. I kept the look of the scrappy backgrounds and even made a video showing how I machine quilted it with fun decorative machine stitches. Click the image below to watch the video:
After making all these quilts, I’m still not tired of this design!!
While supplies last, I have kits available to make the Black White & Bright Hashtags version above, or either of the bright pastel Stitchy versions below.
Once I sewed the blocks together, I quickly got them up on my design wall following the quilt pattern layout. This wasn’t the final arrangement, but it let me see at a glance what it was going to look like.
Next, I spent a bit of time rearranging all of my blocks in a pleasing order. I wanted to keep the colors in the same position, but balance them out so you could start seeing the diagonal rows emerging. I purposefully made a few blocks that were a little lighter or darker to give the quilt some depth and sparkle.
I took a picture with my phone so that I could gather up each row of blocks and sew them all together, assemby-line style. I placed each row of blocks in a stack next to my sewing machine in order. I oriented them so that each pair of blocks is right sides together and the right hand side of the block closest to the machine is the side I’m sewing on.
I press all of my seams open so that the blocks lie super flat and I pin next to each intersection so that my points and corners wil match. I place my pins perpendicular so I can quickly grab them before sewing over them.
Each row had an odd number of blocks, so I left the odd block on the design wall. I can refer to my layout image and match up with each row with the missing block to keep things organized while I’m sewing.
As each row was completed, I started laying them out in order on my cutting table. This is so that I could press each row flat before adding it to the design wall to check the overall layout.
I put together a little video montage showing how it was starting to look as I sewed each row together. It’s fun to see the quilt shrink and the design to appear more prominent. Click the image below to watch. It’s only 20 seconds long, but of course took much longer in reality!
I’m really happy with how the finished quilt top turned out.
My Positive Direction quilt pattern is available as a PDF download and includes instructions for 4 sizes, including the one seen here.
Next up, I need to make the backing, then baste & quilt it. Those will all be separate posts, so stay tuned for more behind the scenes as I continue to make this quilt!
It’s fun to share some of the reasoning behind the fabrics I’ve designed. With my Good Vibes collection, I wanted to create a group of fabrics with an equal number of lights and darks so that they’d work well in lots of precut friendly patterns.
Speaking of precut friendly patterns made from light and dark, have you downloaded my FREE Puzzle Box quilt pattern? It’s made from 2 sets of 2 1/2″ wide strip rolls – half light and half dark! The picture below was taken at our favorite summer spot – Hermosa Beach in California.
Of course this quilt would look fabulous in any fabrics, but I just love the way it looks in the summery, citrus hues of my Good Vibes collection. You can grab 2 jelly rolls to make the quilt exactly as I did. Or, change things up and pair 1 jelly roll with a highly contrasting light or dark fabric that’s all the same. No matter what you do, it’s going to look great!!
Free Companion Video – Learn to Quilt Simple Wavy Lines
Nowadays, I can’t even make a quilt without recording a video while I’m machine quilting it. Nothing pleases me more than sharing my super simple domestic machine quilting techniques with all of you! Click the image below to watch my video tutorial and add this one to your quilty bucket list!
Christa Quilts 