"Machine Quilting with Style" Blog Hop and Giveaway

I am very excited to be part of Christa's blog hop for her newly released first book, "Machine Quilting with Style"!

I have followed Christa's blog forever, with her becoming a great online quilt friend over the years.  I had the chance to room with Christa at QuiltCon 2015 earlier this year.  She is just one of those people that are so easy to talk to and is willing to share all of her knowledge.  Each night we told ourselves that we would go to bed at a reasonable hour, but wound up talking into the early morning hours each and every night. 

Christa was proofreading her book during QuiltCon so I got a little sneak peek.  My favorite quilt from the book was called Rain and I was very excited that was the quilt I got to make for this hop.

Christa asked us to change up the pattern and make it our own so I tried to put my own spin on Rain.  Rain is a lap-sized quilt and so I shrunk it down by about a third to be a good baby sized quilt.  Since my quilt was a smaller version of Rain, I decided to name mine Drizzle.

In Christa's version, she used a cream background with some bold colored solids for the stripes.  I used a bunch of low volume prints for the background and used some dark turquoise solids (and one lime green print) for the stripes.  Here is the quilt as it was coming together.

For the quilting, I love to pair different types of quilting together, I quilted randomly spaced lines on the background portion of the quilt using the same straight line technique that Christa used in her version.  To give good texture but still blend in, I used a 40 wt Aurifil light cream / white thread (2021).  

I was originally going to do some swirls in the stripes but decided that the stripes needed a looser more organic feel to them so I decided to add some hand quilting.  I added 3 rows of big stitch hand quilting to each colored strip using 12 wt Auriful thread in matching colors (1147 and 2810).  I love the juxtaposition of the machine quilting next to the hand quilting.

Christa's book is jam packed with great quilting knowledge delivered in the same easy to understand way that Christa blogs.  Her book has an almost conversational tone to it, making it easy to follow along and absorb all of the tips and techniques the book contains.

Sometimes when I get to the end of the pattern there is that dreaded phase, "Quilt as desired". Christa's book really answers that question by teaching many different beginner friendly quilting patterns (including both straight line quilting and free motion quilting) and takes it one step further by showing how to quilt the quilts in her book.

I really like how the book includes some very versatile patterns, you can see all the different versions bloggers made from Christa's book patterns on the Machine Quilting with Style blog hop by clicking here!

Christa is even going to have a quilt a long from one of the pattern in her book.  You can vote here to pick which pattern is used:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WVTWMRP

You can get your copy of Christa's book, "Machine Quilting with Style" from:
Signed copy from ChristaQuilts.com

Martingale (publisher) – free e-copy with purchase of the book
Amazon

Now for the Giveaway!

You can win your own free e-copy of Machine Quilting With Style.  This giveaway is open to everyone around the world and will run until September 30th at 8pm EST.  To enter:

1. Leave a comment, any comment.  If you would like a topic, I would love to know if you have ever made a holiday quilt and if yes, for which holidays?

2. Followers of mine get a bonus entry, please leave a separate comment with how you follow Meadow Mist Designs (old and new followers welcome).

Follow Meadow Mist Designs

E-mail          Bloglovin          Instagram

Note: If you are a no-reply blogger then please include your e-mail address. If I can not reach you, you can not win.

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, Finish It Up Friday, Fabric Frenzy Friday, and Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She.

**Giveaway now closed, thanks for entering! **