Fandangle: Out of the Box

Fandangle alert! Christa Watson's "Out of the Box" quilt, featuring Fandangle, is featured in the December 2018 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting, on sale now. We talked to Christa about her quilt below. 

"Out of the Box" by Christa Watson

Used with permission from American Patchwork & Quilting® magazine.
©2018 Meredith Corporation. All rights reserved.

Where did you come up with the idea for this design?

This started off as a doodle—the idea of a box shape. I started playing around with it in grayscale, and when I colored it with the Fandangle fabrics, I realized how well it worked.

How did you choose the background fabric?

First I tried gray (from the collection) and it didn’t sparkle. The white background nailed it. It makes the design crisp and clean and allowed the fabrics to shine. I used white Color Weave. I love that print in particular because it’s more modern and works well with my fabrics.

Here’s my Color Theory 101 lesson: Grab all the fabrics you like and pair them with up with a super light or super dark fabric, and they’re going to look great. It’s all about the contrast.

What’s something that might surprise us about this quilt?

When I first designed this quilt, the colored strip was along the edge of the block (flip flopped with the white strip). When I started making it, I tried switching the colored and white strips. I liked I better. The colored strips float. Sometimes I’ll be 99% sure that I like the design, but I leave room to tweak it.

Do you pick fabrics specifically for each block?

I call it planned scrappy. The only rhyme or reason in my choices is that the square and strips are different fabric. I don’t want to think about it much—I just want to sew. Then I spend time arranging colors when I lay out the blocks.

We love the scrappy binding!

Thanks! Fandangle is available in 20-piece fat quarter bundles, so I designed this quilt to work with those bundles. I love the way a scrappy binding looks, but I also like designs where people don’t need to source more fabric for the binding. Using strips from the fat quarters worked well.

Tell us about the quilting.

I didn’t want to do a design that would detract from the fabrics. If I’ve created a design with busy fabrics, I try not to do busy quilting. I used my walking foot to make wavy lines. My “perfectly imperfect” machine quilting method aims for texture over perfection.

Click here to read more about Christa's quilting.

What do you like best about this quilt?
What I like about the quilt design is that it’s a pattern that will look good with any fabric. I really love quilts like this with simple machine quilting texture—it’s fast and it looks good.

Click here to see the entire Fandangle collection.

Click here to visit Christa's website.

Click here to find American Patchwork & Quilting.