What Chamisa’s Been Working On
4.25.2019

As a life-long crafter, I have a good bit of experience with sewing; but I hadn’t tried any quilting until recently. As usual, rather than dipping my toe in and working on one project from start to finish, I dove in head first and ended up with two small quilts and a pillow! I began last fall, working from the Out of the Box Pattern by Christa Watson of Christa Quilts, and reducing the size of the blocks by 50%. I don’t have a dedicated space for my sewing machine (see my makeshift setup in the photos below) so for this first quilt I decided to hand-piece the blocks.

I really enjoyed the slow and steady process of hand-piecing—emphasis on slow—but when I found a stack of precuts, I decided to zip them together on the machine. Now I had a second quilt top done, and it was SO much faster!

Simple quilt using Tea Service fabrics by Connecting Threads.

At this point, I also took some leftover scraps from the Out of the Box quilt and stitched together a scrappy block for a throw pillow. I’ve been wanting to try some large hand stitching, and this seemed like a perfect project to try it out on. I did a lot of poking around on Pinterest for design ideas, and really liked the stuff I was seeing that had a more wobbly and handmade look, rather than perfect, even stitches.

My makeshift sewing space. Not bad at all!

When I started quilting, I ran into some issues with the fabric pulling unevenly. After washing the quilts the pulling was less obvious, but I definitely need to buy a walking foot!

The finished Out of the Box quilt, made with Marika Indigo Batiks.

I had so much fun with these three projects. Each one taught me something a little different. I now have a goal to create a dedicated sewing space in my home! Also on my list: a better quality sewing machine 🙂


11 comments

  1. Kathy Potts - April 25, 2019

    Beautiful job on the hand sewing! I would never have thought it wasn’t machine sewn. Christa has some pretty neat patterns and I have three of her books now. So far no projects made from them, but someday……………….
    All your projects look great! A walking foot will be a big help. I used to use one until I bought a Pfaff Quiltmate 4.0. It has the IDF, integrated dual feed, so no walking foot is needed when this option is utilized. I just leave it on all the time as it’s also a big help when piecing, as well as quilting. I hope you share some more of your work soon!

    Reply
    • Chamisa - April 29, 2019

      Thank you so much Kathy! Having a machine with IDF sounds like a dream, I’ll have to check out the Pfaff 4.0 🙂

      Reply
  2. JOYCE ESTLE - April 25, 2019

    Your quilts are beautiful! Being an animal lover & rescuer of pit bulls, I love your baby. I too have one! Thank you for sharing!

    Reply
    • Chamisa - April 29, 2019

      Thank you Joyce! So glad you love pitties too, this guy belongs to my roomate so I get to hang out with him all the time.

      Reply
  3. Michelle P - April 28, 2019

    Fantastic job on your first quilt projects! Just a thought – if you don’t care about having a bunch of fancy stitches you might want to consider buying a vintage sewing machine ( be sure to get one with metal gears). They are sturdy, easy to service yourself & waaay less $$$ than new computerized machines.

    Reply
    • Chamisa - April 29, 2019

      That is great advice Michelle, my mom had a vintage Singer when I was a kid. She made EVERYTHING on it, and I’m pretty sure it still works.

      Reply
  4. Daisy Gong - May 6, 2019

    The beauty of your quilts hit my heart.To be honest, I don’t really like the blue color, but the three blue little things you woven are very beatuful, let me know that blue can be so charming.
    Recently because I work at the rotary cutter blade company, I start to contact fabric and sewing,Then I learned the beauty of the fabric.We can weave beautiful quilt with fabric. They are just like beautiful clothes, it is worthy of people to appreciate.
    In a word ,I also want to have them.OK,just a joke.

    Reply
  5. Linda Parks - May 18, 2019

    Like your quilts. But question; does anyone know what Connecting Threads fabric thread counts are? They have a new Swirl Tonals; but don’t know what the quality of Fabrics is from them. Thread counts would typically answer; and what grade of Fabric, is it a true quilting grade?

    Reply
    • Sue from MN - December 7, 2019

      I realize that this is a little late, but I do have some info that might help you out. I can’t help you with thread count, but I can tell you from experience that I love working with the swirl fabrics! I have purchased them in many colors and all of them have worked so well in my projects. I love the luxury prints too.

      Reply
  6. test teest - June 26, 2019

    Testing – Please Ignore

    Reply
  7. Jessica - September 25, 2019

    Congrats on a gorgeous catalog–April 2019. That page with all the thread colors is just beautiful. I will definitely save it for future thread purchases. The colors are so vivid. They are a bit hard to see and chose online. Jeez, the page looks good enough to eat!!

    Reply

Comment