If you follow me on Instagram then you have seen some sneak peaks of the quilt I’m about to show here.  It is called Starstruck and is a pattern in Christa Watson’s new book “Piece and Quilt with Precuts”

Let me tell you how I started with all this.  As soon as I found out I was to be part of the book tour Blog Hop I went through all the quilts in the book looking for one that would just call to me.  ALL OF THEM CALLED TO ME!!!    So I called my mom.  I hadn’t made a quilt for her in a while.  I’m not one to surprise people with quilts because I want to make exactly what they want.  So what did my mom want?  Starstruck.  AND she wanted it exactly as Christa had done in the book.

Luckily I had a stack of 12 fat quarters that fit the bill for the light fabrics needed for the quilt.  I took one each of the colors with me to my local quilt store with two friends and we searched for the 12 dark fabrics.  Christa’s quilt is very neutral with white, light grey, and tan for the lights and dark grey, brown, and black for the dark.  Do you want to know something though?  Colors can be a neutral.  I just had to add some color to this!  So some of my black fabrics became navy and a really deep plum.

The piecing of the quilt went quickly.  Christa’s book uses precuts for all the quilts, and this one was fat quarters.  I made a what I thought was going to be a huge mistake by purchasing 1/4 yards instead of fat quarters for the dark fabrics, but I was able to cut all the pieces I needed.

I spent an evening and the following morning laying out all my stars, looking for the best arrangements of lights to dark and am so happy with the way it came out.

Now to the true test of my quilting capabilities.  The book has 11 quilt patterns and 18 quilting motifs.  Christa walks you through a quilting motif for each quilt in wonderful detail and encourages you to mix and match the motifs to make the quilt your own.  Quilting is where I feel less confident in my abilities, but take a look at how this turned out.

This is a free motion design called loops and stars, with instructions on how to quilt other motifs.  Soon you will see a quilt on Instagram where I will use hearts in the place of the stars.  It is so easy to follow Christa’s directions and come out with some amazing quilting.  She has two other books that focus on quilting that are now on my wish list!  I also plan on taking Christa’s Craftsy classes.  I think my confidence as a quilter is going to grow a hundred fold by the time I am through.

I want to thank the budding photographer in my house who took all but the final picture in today’s blog.  Didn’t she do a fantastic job?  I spent most of the day trying to decide what to use, and well…I’m just going to add all these here.

 

 

However, here is the money shot that I took!  Taken on Aug 21st during the solar eclipse.  Can’t go wrong with an eclipse on a star!

 

My goodness, I’ve had so much fun with this blog hop.  Please check out the line up for the entire hop here and check out all the fantastic interpretations of Christa’s patterns.

And don’t forget the giveaways!!!  There are a few, including 2 right here, right now from me!!!!

For a free eBook of “Piece and Quilt with Precuts” leave a comment below.  Do you like to stick to one motif when quilting or do you prefer to mix and match?  Do you use a walking foot or free motion quilt or both?  Any tips and hints for those of us who struggle a bit?  I take a piece of my back fabric, a piece of the batting, and a fabric left over from piecing the top to make a practice sandwich.  This way I can fix any thread color issues or tension issues and get a feel for the quilting motif before the needle hits the quilt itself.

You can’t Piece and Quilt with Precuts without some precuts, now can you?  So, head over to my Instagram, @lovinglylissa to find my IG give away.  Two charm packs (each with 20 fabrics) of Amy Butler’s Timeless to get you started on your own quilt!  You can’t miss the post on my feed, it’s a picture of the charm packs with “GIVEAWAY” written across it.  Instructions on how to enter will be posted under it.

Winners will be chosen when the blog hop ends on August 31st.

Also, Christa has her own shop called The Precut Store where I am positive you can find the perfect precuts to use.

Lovingly,

Lissa