Christa Watson is a wonderful creative force in this quilty business of ours. She is incredibly skilled at machine quilting, creative with her quilt patterns, and a master in the world of color. Christa has been a dedicated Aurifil gal since first giving our threads a try back in 2013, stating “When I noticed that all my friends and those I follow were raving about them on social media, I had to give them a try. Once I did, I quickly cleaned out my thread stash and got rid of everything else!”
Christa has worked tirelessly to build her brand and people have taken notice. She is an author, a teacher, an award-winning quilter, and she even has two curated Aurifil Thread Collections! She just published her third book, Piece and Quilt with Precuts, with Martingale. We love how she so effortlessly breaks down the process, making a professionally finished quilt something that is achievable for us all.
Piece and Quilt with Precuts features 11 quilts with 18 different machine quilting patterns. Techniques range from quilting using a walking-foot to free-motion to a combination of the two. Christa walks readers through the process, from the initial planning, to selecting fabrics, to piecing, deciding on a quilting pattern, auditioning threads, and more. It’s truly everything that a beginner or even an already skilled quilter needs to hone those quilty skills.
PIECE and QUILT WITH PRECUTS QUILTS
We are simply head over heels for some of the quilts featured in Christa’s book. We don’t want to give everything away, so we’ll just feature a few favorites here. For more on all of the quilts, don’t forget to follow along on Christa’s blog — and of course, go grab a copy of her book for easy access to everything!
TODAY’S FEATURED QUILT
To learn more about today’s featured quilt, Twinkling Diamonds, head over to Christa’s blog.
We just love the contrast between the fluid waves and the straight line doodles!
CHRISTA’S CLASSES
If you’re lucky, you’ve already been a student of Christa’s. She travels around teaching her fabulous techniques and we’ve heard the classes are simply fantastic. Our very own Hilary Jordan (Aurifil’s Social Media and Quilt Guild Coordinator) is a member of the Houston Modern Quilt Guild. Christa gave a hands-on workshop for the guild last weekend and Hilary was able to attend. We’re thrilled to have a first hand account of what Christa’s classes are like!
Hi everyone! I am so excited to talk a little about what it is like to take a class with Christa. I’ve been a member of the Houston Modern Quilt Guild for four years, and I always love the opportunities that being a quilt guild member brings!
The class was all day, and it was split between walking foot quilting and free motion quilting. In total we learned almost 2 dozen different quilting motifs! The absolute best part is that everyone learned how to do these techniques on their own sewing machine. Pictured you can see my Janome. The opportunity to learn quilting techniques I can tackle on my own machine was absolutely amazing!
Going into the class I’d say I was on the fence between being a beginner to intermediate quilter when it comes to the actual quilting. The manner in which Christa teaches made it so easy to connect the dots when it came to figuring out how to do certain motifs. I had several aha! moments throughout the class! When the day was done, I felt so empowered that I wanted to go home and tackle the stack of languishing UFO quilt tops I have in the closet. You know you have some of those too. 😉 If you ever have the opportunity to take a workshop or class with Christa, do it!
— Hilary
To find out if Christa is teaching somewhere near you, check out her schedule here. If no local events are planned, we’d recommend checking out one of her Craftsy classes: Startup Library: Quilting & The Quilter’s Path.
FREE PATTERN
For more info on the pattern for this gorgeous Baby Geese Quilt Pattern, check out Christa’s launch post. It’s a terrific way to get you started on your quilty journey with Christa:).
GIVEAWAY!!
Excited to get started with your own machine quilting? We are excited to offer up a fab giveaways. Two lucky winners will each receive one of the above collections by Christa Watson. Released last year, the Piece and Quilt Collections, Colors and Neutrals, feature all of Christa’s absolute go-to colors for piecing and quilting. It’s like a perfect starter kit to both build your stash and provide you with the necessary tools to get down to business;). To enter to win, click here to head to the Rafflecopter entry page or simply click on the image above. You don’t have to complete all of the entries, but the more you complete, the greater your chance is of winning! This giveaway will be open from now until 11:59pm on Thursday, August 31. Winner will be announced and contacted on Friday, September 1. This giveaway is open to all of our International friends as well!
UPDATE: This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to our winners, Allison and Dee! (Winners have been emailed 🙂 )
ABOUT CHRISTA
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