Welcome to my stop on the blog hop for Machine Quilting With Style by Christa Watson of Christa Quilts! My back-to-school inspired quilt is my version of the Static quilt from Christa's book.
Would you believe I have never done a simple patchwork-square quilt? Honestly, I think they're more intimidating than most people realize—not because of the sewing, but for design reasons! There's an art to choosing just the right combination of colors and prints to pull it off. And then you have to get the random placement down—also not as easy as it looks. I admit I've started quilts like this a few times in my sewing career, only to abandon them when I decided something wasn't quite right with the color palette or whatever.
So here's Christa's original Static quilt from Machine Quilting With Style—she nailed it, right? Love the colors and prints, and Christa's method for constructing the quilt helps you get the randomness without sacrificing sewing efficiency. Bingo. I wanted to give patchwork squares another shot.
For my version, I chose a color palette and prints that just felt like September to me. : ) Apples and scissors and reds, blues, yellows, and yellow-greens. (Many of the prints I used are from Melody Miller's Picnic collection for Cotton and Steel, along with lots of other odds and ends from other collections.) This quilt is perfect for my girls to wrap up in while they're doing their prescribed 20 minutes of reading a day after school (one of my two is happy to blow way past the 20-minute mark when it comes to reading, while the other one .... well, we're working on it!)
Mid-way through sewing the top together, I suddenly decided I needed to add some white around the edges. Usually I'm not a fan of borders (if you can even call these borders), but somehow I felt like these squares wanted breathing room. So I gave it to them.
Finally, the quilting! An important (and fun!) part of this book is that it focuses not just on the piecing designs, but exactly how to quilt each pattern in the book as well. Christa used soft wavy lines on the Static from the book, which of course I love (since that's one of my go-to quilting designs myself!) But for this one, I got it in my head that I should try loopy line quilting. I've never done it before, but it reminds me of old-fashioned cursive writing, which went with the back-to-school theme of the quilt. There was a bit of a learning curve, but I love how it turned out and I think I'll be trying loopy quilting again sometime!
Hope you like my version of Static—and please go check out Machine Quilting With Style right now! It's an excellent book to add to your quilty library.
Finally, don't forget to check out the rest of the stops on the blog hop to see more bloggers' takes on the quilts from the book!
9/14 Start at ChristaQuilts
9/14 Color Crystals – Vicki Reubel from Orchid Owl Quilts
9/14 Technicolor Backing – Ida Ewing from Ida Rather Be Quilting
9/15 Pearl Gray – Alyce Blyth from Blossom Heart Quilts
9/16 Broken V – Sharon McConnell from Color Girl Quilts
9/17 Candy Pop – Linda Hungerford from Flourishing Palms
9/18 Ripples – Melissa Corry from Happy Quilting
9/19 Little Man’s Fancy – Tina Guthmann from Mod Geometry
9/22 Static – Lee Heinrich from Freshly Pieced
9/23 Rain – Cheryl Brickey from Meadow Mist Designs
9/24 Lightning – Leanne Chahley from She Can Quilt
9/25 Facets – Kristy Daum from St. Louis Folk Victorian
9/26 Focal Point – Amy Garro from 13 Spools
Plus there will be additional stops on the hop with extra content from these lovely peeps:
9/15 Andover Fabrics
9/16 Amy’s Free Motion Quilting Adventures and Leah Day’s Free Motion Quilting Project
9/17 Do You EQ? from Electric Quilt and Darlene from Quilt Shop Gal
9/18 Jacquelynne Steves’ The Art of Home and Scott Hansen from Blue Nickel Studios
9/19 Moda Fabrics – The Cutting Table
9/21 Katy Cameron from The Littlest Thistle
9/22 Debbie Grifka of Esch House Quilts and Generation Q Magazine
9/23 Rebecca Bryan of Bryan House Quilts
9/24 Stitch This – The Martingale Blog and Riley Blake Fabrics
9/25 Michele Foster of The Quilting Gallery and Teri Lucas from TerifiCreations
9/26 Pellon Projects and Amy Ellis from Amy’s Creative Side