Scrappy Quilter Feature–Christa Watson of Christa Quilts

It’s that time of the month again – Scrap Quilt Inspiration time!   How are everyone’s scrap quilts coming along for the big scrap challenge!? I’m really excited to introduce you to an amazing quilter that I have come to know over the last year and her talent just blows me away – Christa Watson of ChristaQuilts (QuiltWithChrista on Facebook and @christaquilts on instgram).  “Lightening” from Christa’s first book, Machine Quilting With Style: From Walking-foot Wonders to Free-motion Favorites
I hope you enjoy the fun interview Christa filled out for me below! (remember K means Kim (aka me) and C means Christa!) —
K: Why do enjoy using fabric scraps for quilting? C: I love putting as many fabrics as I can into a quilt. My philosophy is why choose one fabric when twenty will do? —
K: Do you have a secret or tip for storing your scraps? C: It’s too much visual clutter for me to store my scraps in bins or buckets. So I only keep larger pieces and store them all together with my stash by color. —“Ripples” from Christa’s first book, Machine Quilting With Style: From Walking-foot Wonders to Free-motion Favorites —
K: If someone where to have given you one tip for sewing/quilting when you first started – what do you wish they would have told you? C: That it’s ok to get rid of fabrics you don’t love. I held onto them for 20 years thinking I would use them "someday" but finally purged the excess a few years ago. Now I have a much smaller stash that WORKS! I can see what I have and am excited about everything in my stash. —
K: What’s your favorite color to use in your quilts? C: I really love citrus colors – reds, oranges, yellows, greens. But I’m also finding that lately I’ve been drawn to graphic blacks and whites. The two quilts pictured here can be found in my first book. Modern versions of a Rail Fence (Lightning) and Log Cabin (Ripples). They both used the combination of "controlled scrappy" and "structured improv" and I didn’t even realize it until they were done. I love the idea of calming the chaos with a controlled color palette and then using as many different fabrics in those colors as possible. Although I love improv, I really enjoy making more structured blocks. I usually do this in one of two ways (1) creating my own fabric and then cutting it up into recognizeable shapes, or recreating traditional quilt blocks with wonky piecing. You can recognize the block, but no two blocks are exactly alike. Head on over to Christa’s blog to learn more about how she stores her scraps and how she makes scraps work for her! Christa has two great FREE scrappy block patterns already available –   Block 29 Scrappy Happy Heart for the Splendid Sampler and Christa’s Star block as the 2016 March Aurifil Designer of the Month. I hope you enjoy!  If you make either or both of Christa’s scrappy blocks please feel free to link up and share them below and/or in the Scrap Quilt Challenge facebook group!