Quilting Workshop With Christa Watson

Hello Everyone! I went to a wonderful Domestic Machine Quilting workshop with Christa Watson on Saturday. I would highly recommend taking a class from her if you can. Christa is an excellent instructor, very organized and she kept things moving. She is visiting the Chattahoochee Evening Stars Quilt Guild this week before going to QuiltCon in Savannah. Christa makes modern quilts, but the tips and techniques that she taught us can be used on any quilt. My friend Joyce, who invented the Lap App, invited me to attend the workshop with her. Thanks Joyce!

That’s Christa in the middle, with Joyce on the left and me on the right. The workshop was divided into two sessions; in the morning we learned quilting technics using the walking foot and in the afternoon, it was all about free motion quilting. Most of you know that I do my own FMQ on my projects, but I rarely use the walking foot except to anchor a quilt. Christa gave us some great ideas on using your walking foot for more than just straight line quilting. You will start seeing some of these ideas in the future.

Christa Watson’s Quilt

Christa used this quilt on her goodies table. One of her tips is to just use two quilting motifs throughout the quilt.

Above are two class samples with the walking foot. The left side is a spiral, which after I got going was okay. If I use this, I will really have to practice starting in the center and getting the distance right on that first spiral. The right is one of Christa’s designs called fractured. On her sample, she had a single line of stitching going in different directions. I added the echo line then thought some great FMQ could go in the different spaces.

The left sample used the walking foot to make wavy lines. This would be a great to use as an all over quilt pattern, especially a baby quilt or something that’s going to get used all the time. On the right are some FMQ motifs that are new to me. Almost everything I do is rounded so working with points and squares definitely took some concentration.

These are some of the other samples that we did in the workshop. I also purchased her book with Angela Walters. I was just able to read a little last night, but there are some great tips for both long arm and domestic quilting.

My quilting has really improved over the past five years through taking classes both in person and on-line, but I don’t think I will ever give up the opportunity to learn more. There is always something that you don’t know or didn’t think of.

I wanted to leave you with a picture of early spring…

This was taken on Friday morning, February 3rd. I think the one in front is a Cherry, which is usually one of the first to bloom and I’m not sure what the white ones are in the back. It is a little early for these to be blooming now. Also, on Saturday morning, it was 25 degrees. I doubt if these blooms lasted. I sort of wish it would stay cold or stay warm, not this back and forth.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. I’ll have another Finish-A-Long to show you tomorrow.