Christa Watson of Christa Quilts
Christa Watson is an enthusiastic, award-winning quilter from Las Vegas, Nevada who enjoys
teaching others to find joy in making “perfectly imperfect” quilts from start to finish. She’s
an author, traveling teacher, pattern designer, fabric designer, occasional quilt judge, and
quilting industry ambassador. She is a cheerleader for the “do-it-yourself” machine quilting
movement who believes that quilts don’t have to be perfect to be functional and beautiful.
Christa has been making her living in the quilting industry for over 20 years, and she believes
that if you can dream it, you can do it! Follow her online @christaquilts, christaquilts.tv and
christaquilts.com.
Show Notes:
Christa Quilt Website
Christa Quilts YouTube
The Christa Cabinet
Christa Cabinet on FQS
Christa Quilts Notion Set
Mini Mat & Ruler
Crease Marker
Machine Quilting Gloves
Ergonomic Rotary Cutter
Batting Shears
Aurifil thread collections
Listen to Christa Watson’s interview:
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Transcript:
Carolina Moore:
I love notions, and I’m guessing that you do too. Hey there, friend. It’s Carolina Moore, your favorite sewing and quilting YouTuber, and now podcaster, here with another episode.
So I’m hanging out here with Christa Watson, which is super fun because Christa and I have known each other for basically forever, since we were in the beginning stages of our quilty careers. And I’ve gone on to do pattern design and make notions. And Christa, she actually was writing patterns and then books and then has some notions of her own as well. But before we get into all that, Christa, how about you introduce yourself for someone who doesn’t know of you yet, which I don’t know how, but just in case.
Christa Watson:
Well, thank you, Carolina. Yeah, like she said, we are both friends. I live in Las Vegas. Carolina used to, and now I know she’s still close by in California. And as she said, we have been buddies for quite a while. And so that’s been fun, to watch each other’s careers grow.
So I have been quilting for, I don’t know, 27, 28, 29 years now. I’ve been doing it full time since about 2008, and I’ve just pretty much tried everything in the quilting industry. I have tried machine quilting for people for pay, didn’t jive with that. I have tried making custom quilts for people, same thing, not my jam. And during those, as I was developing my skills and trying to quilt for people and things like that, I very quickly discovered that I could be more profitable and I could have more fun with my quilting. Rather than selling one quilt one time, I could design the pattern for the quilt that I was making and sell the pattern, and then I could teach the education on how to make the quilt and how to machine quilt it and sell that multiple times.
So once I realized I had an affinity for that, things just kind of really took off. So in the industry, like I said, it’s my full-time job. I am a fabric designer. I’ve written multiple books, multiple patterns. I travel all over the country, a couple places out of the country, teaching machine quilting. And I call myself a cheerleader for the quilting industry because I love it, but I also love hearing stories about other people having their business in the quilting industry as well.
And of course for the hobbyist who just wants to do it for fun, not their job, I love getting that spark of excitement that I see on their face when they realize that they can have fun quilting, that it can be stress-free, and just an all around fun, amazing thing to do.
Carolina Moore:
Well, you for sure are a huge cheerleader in the quilting industry, and I love that about you, and I love all the support that you give to folks in the industry, myself definitely included. And I did not know that you’d actually tried machine quilting for others. You are a prolific machine quilter, and I know you have books about machine quilting on your domestic, and that’s one of the things that you teach as well. So I feel like I know you so well. It’s like how do I even ask these questions? So you work with some companies already, correct?
Christa Watson:
Yes, yes. The way that my career has evolved is I do something that I enjoy, like machine quilting or writing books or being an ambassador for a sewing machine company, whatever. So I look at the products and the things that I am currently using, and I see if there’s a relationship that can be built. For example, I’m a BERNINA ambassador, and being a BERNINA ambassador, I’ve been officially a BERNINA ambassador for six years. However, I have been an unofficial BERNINA ambassador for over 25 years. And so things like that, I’m already using a company’s products or their notions or their materials, and I’m already talking about them and I’m already recommending them to my students.
So once I kind of realized that, I was like, oh, well, can I get a little extra something out of something I’m already doing? Can I get maybe some free marketing? Can I get maybe some opportunities to earn extra income? Can I get maybe a good relationship that’s going to lead to something else? So kind of the story of my career and the success of my career has been getting to know people, and as I get to know people and as I get to know different companies, figuring out what’s a good fit, people that I mesh with, and how I can support them in the industry, and also how they can help me in my business.
Carolina Moore:
So you’re a machine ambassador, but you’re also a fabric designer as well, right?
Christa Watson:
Yeah. And the way that came about is fun because, so this is kind of those relationships that I was talking about. So first I had a relationship with BERNINA because they were always my favorite company. That was the crown jewel. I was like, oh my gosh, if I could be associated with them, I just love their machines. And they actually own the notions company called BREWER, and they own the fabric company named Benartex.
And when I first got on with them, and I knew that they owned all these companies, I was like, okay, what’s the deal with the Bs? And they’re like, oh, no, that’s just happenstance. That’s just a coincidence. It’s nothing purposeful there. So yeah, because of that, because of my relationship with BERNINA, that led to my relationship with Benartex and becoming a fabric designer. And then that led to my relationship with BREWER and designing notions for them.
And so it’s not that I set out and said, okay, let’s check all these things off my list. It was just kind of like, oh, maybe I might want to design fabric, or maybe I might want to write books. And I kind of explore something. I’m the type of person that I don’t know if I want to do something until I try it. I have to actually try it and do it to decide whether or not I’m going to like it. 90% of the stuff I try, I do like, but there’s still that 10% that I’m like, yeah, no, not so much me. And then I move on with my life.
Carolina Moore:
I think we can all relate to that, certain things. Like I might try needle-turn appliqué again, but I know there’s some people who are vehemently against ever doing needle-turn appliqué again. I don’t think I’ll ever do another pineapple quilt block ever, ever again in my life. I’ve had enough of that one.
Christa Watson:
Yeah, you don’t know until you try. I’m like, I really teach a lot of machine quilting, specifically on a domestic. And a few years ago when ruler work really exploded onto the scene, and a lot of my friends, first it exploded onto the scene with the long arming. And then once some of that evolved, and then the domestic machine quilter started using and modifying the equipment and supplies for long armers, and they started modifying it for domestic machines, then the domestic machine quilting market caught up and gave us tools and supplies.
So in my head, while all this was going on, I thought, oh, I’m going to teach ruler work and I’m going to write books and blah, blah, blah. And then I sat down and I did ruler work for about a year and decided, you know what, that’s not my thing. It’s not my thing. I will leave that to other people. They can do it, they can teach it. And so again, I thought that I would love it. I tried it. I didn’t love it. So then I went back to what I do love.
Carolina Moore:
I absolutely love that. There’s so many people. That’s one of the things I say about this quilting industry, is that we share everything, but one of the things that we often share with one another is our fears. So someone will say, “Oh no, that has curves.” That’s one of the common ones. Like, oh no, that has curves. Curves are scary. It’s like, well, have you ever tried curves? “No, no, no. But so-and-so in my guild told me that they’re scary. So I’ve never tried them.”
And if you go to so-and-so and say, “All right, Susie, have you tried curves before?” “Oh, no, I didn’t, but Janet, Janet’s the one who told me that curve are scary.” And you end up going back four generations, and people who heard from someone who tried it once and was unsuccessful, and now we have four generations of quilters who are afraid of doing the thing. So I love that you tried the ruler quilting, you gave it a shot, and decided for yourself, hey, this isn’t for me. It doesn’t mean that the technique’s terrible and that no one should do it. It’s just not for you. And that’s okay.
Christa Watson:
Yeah, exactly. I always tell people, when I am teaching my domestic machine quilting classes, I say, “You know what? At the end of the day, if you take a class for me and you decide that you don’t like it, it’s okay. We’ll still be friends. Because it’s just as important for you to discover what you don’t like as it is for what you do like.”
And I think those of us that kind of do it as a job, sometimes we’re kind of scared to admit that we do or don’t like something because people might expect it. Like I said, for the ruler work, there were maybe these expectations that like, oh, if I do it, then I could do videos on it and I could do this, and I could create my own line of rulers or whatever. And there’s been other things like that in the industry too, where people have come to me, companies have approached me, and they said, “We would love you to try XYZ product.”
I was like, “Oh, sure, no problem.” And I try XYZ product and I don’t love it. And so I’ve actually passed up quite a number of really amazing opportunities. There was nothing wrong with that product, it just didn’t jive with me. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. And as my career and my quilting in general has evolved over the years, I run into that a lot where I’m like, oh, like you said, Carolina loves this. Okay, I’m going to give it a try. Yeah, I don’t love it.
And so again, for me, part of my openness and my cheerleading for the industry is I really believe that there’s room for everyone, and I do think it’s okay to try things, not like them, and then move on with your life and then try other things. So not to be too negative, but there’s been plenty of things that I have found that I just absolutely love, and it’s been super fun to figure that out.
Carolina Moore:
I love that there are so many options at quilting, and yes, there are so many things to love. Okay, so I mean, I’ve watched your journey as it has unfolded over the last decade or so, definitely, as it’s kind of unfolded. And so I know you were writing books, and I think then you started getting into designing fabric, and then you got your machine ambassadorship, and then you came up with an idea for quilt blocks.
Christa Watson:
Well, yes. Okay, oh my goodness. Yeah, so many things. So this is fun. So I guess maybe, I know the focus might be notions or whatnot.
Carolina Moore:
So I define a notion maybe more liberally than anyone else would. So to me it’s anything other than fabric really. The notion is-
Christa Watson:
Oh, I love that.
Carolina Moore:
Or I guess machines, so not machines, not fabric, but any other tool that you need that’s not your sewing machine to be able to make your project to me is a notion. And so the quilt blocks to me is definitely, it’s an add-on, it’s an accessory. It’s a notion.
Christa Watson:
Well, that’s cool. And so I have a little bit of you to thank for this because you have introduced me to people that have introduced me to people. We all kind of know each other eventually. You meet some person, and people switch roles in the industry too. Maybe somebody who is the marketing manager for one company might go on and be the purchasing person for another company. And so as you get to know these people in the industry and they move their different roles in their different companies, it’s really good to make these good relationships because you never know where that’s going to end up.
But basically the story with that is that with my machine quilting, I started making videos showing people how they could do really simple designs, really easy machine quilting ideas that aren’t scary. And so I was making these videos and people all of a sudden were like, “Well, tell me more about your sewing machine. Tell me more about your sewing table. Tell me more about your sewing setup. How can you do this?” Because people were like, they’d see my quilts and they think, oh, you have to have a long arm to do them. I’m like, you could have a long arm. You don’t have to have a long arm. Because that was another one of those things I tried, incidentally. I did try long arm quilting. Wasn’t for me, so I stick with domestic.
Anyway, and so I basically had this idea in mind for a table, a drop in table that had different, I guess different bells and whistles on what makes it good for domestic machine quilting, holding up the weight of the quilt, giving a lot of room to work.
Carolina Moore:
So when you’re saying a drop in table, that’s a table where your sewing machine, the bed of your sewing machine is flush with the bed of the table so that base of the sewing machine is dropped in below the tabletop, right?
Christa Watson:
Exactly. So like in the olden days, the thirties or whatnot, you see the old time Singer Featherweights and they were built into a table. And even though the machines were small, you had a lot of surface because your machine was attached to a table, it wasn’t lifted up. So you have the whole surface of the table to work on, which helps compensate for friction and drag and make sure projects run smoothly.
So anyway, I had been quilting for a while, kind of hacking together a system so that I could hold up the weight of the quilt and push it under the machine for domestic machine quilting. Well, I got in touch with the company. Because of you introducing me to someone who introduced me to the company, that’s kind of how it worked out, with Arrow Sewing company. And I told them my idea for what I did not see on the market.
And getting to the quilt blocks, basically what it was, there’s lots of tables out there where you can drop your sewing machine in. There’s lots of gadgets and things you can do, but the issue I was running into is that when my sewing machine was on a table in the middle of my sewing room, not pushed against the wall, the quilt is bigger than the table. And so what happens is the quilt falls off the side of the table and it falls off the end of the table. Now, you can mitigate this by putting your sewing area in a corner, and so you have either the right side or the left side or the back side. If you’re in a corner, the wall can hold up your machine.
But I had recently moved and I had redesigned my sewing room, and my machine was basically in the middle of my sewing room with lots of room around it. And so I was running into this issue where my quilt kept falling off the table, and I was like, why does somebody not invent something to mitigate this problem? And I don’t want this to come off the wrong way, but I did do a lot of research. I did talk to a lot of companies. There were a lot of amazing big name celebrities out there that were endorsing this company and that company.
And I realized, oh, well, maybe this is the table I should get. And I looked into it, I said, oh, this amazing celebrity is a wonderful piecer, but she doesn’t machine quilt. And so she doesn’t know because she’s only piecing on her table, she’s not quilting on her table, she doesn’t know that she needs something to corral or basically give a lip or an edge on the edge of the table because she’s not quilting her own quilts, which nothing wrong with that. And so I just really, I couldn’t understand why nobody had invented this.
So as I talked to Arrow, as they created this table called the Christa table, my idea was to add something onto the table so that when you extend your table and you make it bigger, it had a three or four inch raised lip all around the edges to hold your quilt. And they said, “That’s a good idea. However, that’s not practical for shipping.” So it was actually their idea to say, why don’t we make that raised edge, that lip, a separate component? Not only is it better for shipping and it’s easier, it’s more flexible because then these blocks, they’re basically called Christa’s quilt blocks, you can add them. They’re just like with C clamps, you just add them onto the edge of any table and it’ll turn that table into something that has a lip on it.
So I know this is audio, I don’t know if I’ve created a picture or not, but that’s basically what they did. So they’re basically two sets of boards that are clamped onto the table. And so you can put two of them on the back, you can put two of them on the left, you can put one on the right, depending on the setup of your table, and they fit on it. And so it solved that problem. So all of this boils down to I had to solve this problem for myself because no one else had solved it yet.
Carolina Moore:
I think that’s such a common thread that we see with various notion designers. There was this problem, and I tried to find a solution because someone had to have solved this already, and then I couldn’t find one. And so I created this solution, and because I’m a quilter, instead of just keeping it to myself, I tried to find a way that everyone else could have access to this solution as well. I love that.
Christa Watson:
And part of it too was I just wanted, when people would see my videos and they would say, how do you do that, I didn’t even originally care about if my name was attached to it. I just wanted to find some kind of product that would work so that when people saw my videos, I could say, “Oh, go get this.” And because it wasn’t out there, I had to work with the company to create it. And so now when people see my videos and they’re like, “Oh, what kind of table do you have? What’s those little bumpers around the edge of your table?” I can say, “Oh, well, this is the Christa table and this is Christa’s quilt blocks.”
And it’s kind of funny because Arrow names all of their tables after people, and so it wasn’t so much a stretch. They’re like, “Well, we might as well name it the Christa,” because all of their tables have a name on them. And then I thought the quilt block, they named that after me as well. And so I thought that was, yes, I do get some royalties off that and everything. But anyway, it was a solution to a problem. It sure made my life a lot easier, and it’s just been a wonderful working relationship with Arrow as well.
Carolina Moore:
I love that. So you have the quilt blocks, they were successful. People love them, especially for people who are machine quilting and doing their own free motion quilting and wanting to fight gravity pulling their quilts off the tables. But then you came out with some new notions after that. Can you tell me the story of how they came about?
Christa Watson:
Okay, so my other thing is I worked with BREWER, again because BERNINA owns BREWER. That was just kind of like a no-brainer. Every year there’s a trade show that’s specifically for BERNINA dealers and then BREWER, even though BREWER sells to any quilt shop. And so how that came about is they worked with I think four of us, me, Amanda Murphy, Kaffe Fassett, and Tula Pink and we all came out with a line of notions.
Now, when I am going up against those heavy headers, I kind of feel like I’m the B team, but I was like, okay, that’s cool. No, you know what I mean. These are people that I admire. So when I worked with them, I didn’t know that these other designers were having this big to-do, and so it was last year at their big trade show, they had this big thing. Kaffe Fassett was like the headliner, and they had all these big life-size pictures of Kaffe and Tula and me and Amanda Murphy, and I was like, it’s kind of good that they didn’t tell me they were doing this because it probably would’ve intimidated the heck out of me. But at the same time, I’m like, oh, okay, well, if I can be in the same sentence as Tula Pink, I’m doing pretty good, right?
Carolina Moore:
I would agree. A hundred percent for sure.
Christa Watson:
And they’re amazing. So what I did is I just wanted to start off with just a few notions that it’s like I wasn’t inventing the wheel this time. I wasn’t inventing anything new, but I was thinking about the notions, again, that I use in my studio that maybe aren’t as widely known, or maybe there’s something missing in the marketplace. So the first thing I started with is what I call batting shears. Now, I have seen these before, but they were hard to get and they weren’t really widely available. And basically what they are is they are huge scissors that are like 11 and a half inches long, and you can’t really visualize that until you see these suckers. I mean, they are big, they are heavy, heavyweight. They’re not heavy heavy, but basically what they are, and they kind of have this bent arm, what they do is they make it easy for you to cut through thick batting.
So this was another problem that because I baste my own quilts, I go through a lot of batting, and first I cut a big old chunk of batting off of the roll, or I cut it to size if I’m using a package batting, and then I do this basting process so that I can get it ready for machine quilting on my domestic machine. Well, part of what I do and what I teach in my classes is once my quilt is basted, you’ve got all that extra batting and backing sticking around all four sides. I actually trim that down so that there’s only a little bit of backing and batting, because any domestic machine quilter has probably made this mistake where you’ve got four or five inches sticking out. All of a sudden you’re quilting and you realize the edges of it have flipped over, and now you’re quilting through five layers instead of three layers. You’re quilting through an extra layer of batting and backing because it’s sticking out.
And the idea is you want extra when you’re basting, so you don’t have to line things up perfectly, but by the time you’re ready to quilt that quilt under your machine, you can trim most of that extra off, and as long as you baste it well, your quilt’s not going to shift on you. So if you have less bulk underneath your sewing machine, it’s a lot easier to maneuver the quilt.
Anyway, so this need came about that I really wanted to be able to trim up the edges, and using a rotary cutter just wasn’t doing it for me because it’s hard to wrestle a big old quilt and a rotary cutter to trim off your extra pieces. And regular scissors weren’t strong enough. So I had worked with BREWER and I had tried some of these scissors before that were another brand. I didn’t know where to get them.
So I basically described to them what I wanted. Then they contacted a scissor manufacturer, I think it’s actually Famoré who actually manufactures them. And they said, oh yeah, no problem, we can make these. And so they sent me a prototype. They have my cute little Christa Quilts logo on them, which I tell people, if you use my books, my patterns, my notions, and it has my name on it, it’s infused with special magical pixie dust that makes you a better quilter. That’s actually it. Yes, thank you. In the manufacturing process.
Anyway, so they have my name on them and they’re this really cute teal color, and they send them to me. I tried them out, I said, yes, this is perfect. So that’s what we started with. We started with the batting scissors. Those have been very well received. And then the other, there’s five of them, but there’s two that are the most important. So number one is the batting scissors, and then the second most important is machine quilting gloves. There are lots of brands of gloves out there. You can use gardening gloves. You can pretty much use anything. The reason you want gloves on your fingers is it’s going to give you more grip when you’re pushing the quilt through the machine.
These special ones that I work with with BREWER, they’re very stretchy, so they’re one size fits all, so you don’t have to worry about measuring your hands. And they have these extra little grippy dots on both sides of the fingertips that are going to give you a little extra grip, and it makes them ambidextrous. So you can use either glove on either hand, so you can use them for both hands. And of course they have my cute little logo. So anyway, these gloves, I had been using another brand of gloves, which were fine, but they weren’t as breathable as these ones and they weren’t stretchy. And so the ones that I use now are just much more comfortable.
And then I had three other notions. One is just an ergonomic rotary cutter with my cute little logo on it. One is a crease marker that’s like a [inaudible] tool for marking just straight lines. And then another one is just a small little mat, because the other thing I found is I have my big old honking big mat that sits on my table. Whenever I would quilt my quilts, and then I would take them to go bind, I would put the binding on, and then the little edges, I would have to take my big old quilt off the machine, go over to my cutting mat, and then trim up the edges and get them all to match up. And I thought I need just a little small mat and a little small ruler that I can keep right at my sewing machine to make small little trimming cuts, whether it be binding or trimming off stitch and flip units, anything I can just have right at my machine so I don’t have to get up and go to the big mat.
So anyway, yeah, so a set of five notions, but again, to me the number one and number two are the big scissors and then the gloves for machine quilting. Those are the most important ones in my studio and the ones that have really, really done well.
Carolina Moore:
But I love that the thought process through all of these was, I mean, there are already scissors out in the market. You didn’t invent scissors, but you said what can make these scissors just the best for this purpose that maybe not everyone has, but the people who do have it, these are the things that they’re looking for and this is what they’ll value in that.
Not everyone does their own machine quilting. And not everyone who machine quilts likes gloves, but you’ve been doing a lot of machine quilting. You’ve taught a lot of people how to machine quilt. And okay, so what are we looking for in gloves to make these suit myself and then the students that I’ve taught and the feedback that I’ve gotten from them? So it wasn’t just about, hey, I’m going to throw my logo on a product. Someone from a factory said, “Hey, Christa, let’s throw your logo on a product and we’ll just pay some money for that,” which that’s also valid, but that’s not what this is.
Christa Watson:
Well, there were some more that, you know, so as I basically made this huge list of like, okay, I need this and I need this and I need this, and they sent me some prototypes of some other notions which didn’t perform well. And so there were about, let’s see, we released five of them, there were eight of them that we tried, and three of them didn’t meet my specifications. I said, “You know what, I’m going to wait on that.”
And so again, I’m not going to put my name on something, I’m not going to endorse something, I’m not going to get behind something that doesn’t work how I want it to work. And so it’s been a fun process. If these continue to do well, I literally have a list of 25 ideas and it keeps growing. I’ve gotten five of them out there, and so hopefully over the years we’ll do another five and another five as they go.
Carolina Moore:
I love that. So we have more Christa Watson notions to look forward to?
Christa Watson:
Absolutely. And little things, like I mean, I don’t know how if I would do this, but there’s just so many things in my sewing room that I use for machine quilting, things like painter’s tape. So one idea, I don’t know if this one’s really going to be worth it to do it, but one idea I had was like, okay, there’s painter’s tape. Everybody uses painter’s tape. Why can’t I do painter’s tape in fun colors? And so that’s an idea I had. That one might be a little more long term.
And just again, other little doodads. I mean, you’re kind of the same way. You’ve come up with some really cool stuff that you’re like, why isn’t this out there on the marketplace yet? And I don’t know, it feels kind of cool. It feels good to improve on something. It feels good to tell people about something that they may not have heard of before. And then it feels good to invent something because again, the whole reason that I do this is because I want other quilters to have the joy that I feel when I am working on my quilts. And if I could just share that love and joy with everybody, you know what they say, if the whole world was peacemakers, there would be peace. Hahaha.
Carolina Moore:
Yeah. But first of all, your masking tape should have a grid on it, so that makes it easy to line up and do crosshatching. And also-
Christa Watson:
That’s a great idea.
Carolina Moore:
So that it matches with the width of a sewing foot so that it’s very easy to, because if you line your sewing foot up on that line, then your needle will be right at the edge of that painter’s tape and you won’t go too far to the one side and you won’t stitch through the painter’s tape either.
Christa Watson:
You and I might have to have a conversation later. We might have to.
Carolina Moore:
No, just make it happen. Just make it happen.
Christa Watson:
I have to sign a release. I might steal that idea from you.
Carolina Moore:
It’s here on audio, girl. This was your idea. I’m just building on your idea, for you to make it even better. And then the notion will exist out in the world for me to buy. Because I’m like most quilters, right? We love notions. When I go into a quilt shop, I love the fabric. I absolutely wander through the fabric. But my destination is that notion wall because I want to know what people have done to make my life easier.
Christa Watson:
Exactly. How do we make quilting faster? How do we make it easier? How do we make it more enjoyable so that we can make more quilts?
Carolina Moore:
Because at the end of the day when I gift that quilt to someone, they’re going to say, “Oh my gosh, did you make this for me?” And I’m not going to say, “Well, I mean it was made easier because I had Christa’s quilt blocks and I had her machine quilting gloves, and I used a special masking tape that she had.” They’re not going to, it doesn’t matter. Even if I said all that, honestly, if they’re not a quilter and I gave them that information, they’d probably look at me like, what are you talking? So are you saying you didn’t make this?
No, I made it. It’s just as much me made with having the special tools. And I mean, we don’t need all the tools in our life. You absolutely don’t. Buy the ones that make you happy, buy the ones that make your life easier, and leave the ones that you don’t. And that’s totally fine as well. This isn’t a consumerist podcast where you have to buy every single thing, but I just love knowing the stories behind where these tools came from. That whole notion wall exists because of people like you. And I want to know those stories.
Christa Watson:
That’s awesome. I know, and I’m a minimalist. I don’t have a lot of gadgets. I don’t have every single ruler under the sun, but there are a few that I like and there are some ideas. And anyway, it goes back to that idea, number one, there’s room for everyone in quilting. Number two, you don’t have to like everything. And number three, if I like A and you like B, we can still be friends.
Carolina Moore:
Well, yes, because especially if I like A, which is making quilts, and you like B, which is scrappy quilts, then I’ll just gift you my scraps and see if everybody wins because I don’t have scraps all over my sewing room and you get free scraps. So there’s definitely a lot of symbiotic relationships in quilting and with quilters.
Christa Watson:
Absolutely.
Carolina Moore:
So what is next? I mean, other than this list of 20 more notions that we’re going to see from Christa over the next couple of years, what else is next for you?
Christa Watson:
Well, I just, let’s see, as we speak, I know this will probably come out later, I actually was using some of my notions and filming some videos and all that. I have a new line of fabric called Dazzle Dots that’s going to be here in December. So I am working on that. And I just got an email from Benartex and they’re like, “Okay, time to start working on your next line.” So Dazzle Dots is fabric line number nine, that’s coming out in December. And then this summer I have to start designing fabric line number 10.
So the whole process, that will be like, we’re talking in July right now, so I’ll come up with my ideas, I’ll get them to them, and then that will probably come out in, the ideas will be released in the spring, and then the fabric line will be in the fall. So right now I’m starting to think about ideas for fabric that’s not going to be out until about 12, 13, 14 months from now. So that’s my newest, what else am I doing? And then patterns to go with it.
I was doing a bunch of books. I did five books all in a row, and then I took a break. And so I’m probably not going to be doing books for a little while because I want to work on one-offs. And then probably just behind the scenes, more videos. I’ve done crafty videos. I’ve got some stuff with CNT Publishing that’s coming up, but that’s all paid content. But what I’m really, really interested in doing is a lot of free content, whether it be small reels or Instagram videos that are just very short and easily digestible, or longer YouTube videos, I really want to get more education out there.
So behind the scenes, I’m actually doing a lot of education. I’m learning how to do video editing. I’m learning how to do more design software. I’m learning all this stuff so that when I sit down and want to create content and designs and things like that, I’m not stopped. So here we go. Here’s just a side note, another notion or tool for me is my computer and software that I have really been learning so that when I have an idea, I can get it out and I can get out today or I can get it out tomorrow.
And so just spending a lot of time this year on education, improving my skills, not that I have to do it all myself, but just understanding, okay, what video editing software can I use for my phone so that if I shoot a video, I can get it out and I can show it to you by today or tomorrow, not two weeks from now? So a lot of behind the scenes education right now.
Carolina Moore:
And do you have any help doing all of this? I mean, obviously you’re not manufacturing the scissors and the gloves yourself and not putting in the packages yourself, but do you have a team who helps you with all the process of all the different facets of your business?
Christa Watson:
Well, with the companies I do. So for example, Benartex, obviously I design the fabric, they produce it. BREWER manufacturers packages, all the notions. I just work with them on what it is and the design and the colors and stuff. When it comes to my day-to-day stuff, like the teaching and the writing patterns, that’s all me. I do need help. I do need help. So I’m a little bit slowed down right now, and that’s part of the issue, where I have tried farming out. I used to farm out a lot of my graphic design. I’ve tried farming out my social media. I want to revisit that. But I’m a little bit of a type A personality, and I’m a little bit of a recovering perfectionist. So a couple times I’ve tried to farm that out, it hasn’t been satisfactory to me. So right now I’m doing most everything myself, but if I can understand the process of how it all works, then I can train somebody to do it.
Because what I tried, kind of a long answer to this, is I tried hiring people to help me, but the problem is they couldn’t read my mind. And so that’s why. They did good work, but they couldn’t read my mind. And so yes, if they could read my mind, that would be fine. I’d be like, “No, why didn’t you post this Instagram video this way, and blah, blah.” So what I’m doing now with education is I’m not only learning the tools and techniques, software and stuff, I’m figuring out the process.
So for example, if I’m shooting a video on how to use my gloves to machine quilt or how to use my scissors, and a video showing how I baste my quilts, if it’s the same process for every quilt, I can write that down and I can say, “Okay, I need this video of this and I need this angle of this and this is the product I need,” and blah, blah, blah.
So if I can set up these systems and do it all myself, then I can train somebody to think like me so that they don’t have to read my mind. So that’s going to take a while, that’s going to take a few months, maybe a year, before I’m ready to bring someone on to help me because I have to figure out the step first. If you figure out the step and it’s the same steps each time, then you can systematize it and then you can train somebody on it. So that’s kind of where I’m at right now.
Carolina Moore:
Yeah, I find so many of us are doing all the things, wearing all the hats, juggling all the balls as solopreneurs, or with a very small team. So I’m hoping that you get that help and then that frees up that brain space to work on other projects.
Christa Watson:
Exactly. I know. If I didn’t have to sleep and if I didn’t have to eat, that would free up so much time. The good thing is I don’t watch a lot of TV, and people always say, “Oh, what do you do in your free time?” I’m like, “Well, I quilt because this is my free time.” So I do spend a lot of time on it, but the difference between me and maybe some other designers is I just produce less because I also make the quilt myself. I piece it myself. I quilt it myself, because I love that.
And I once actually had somebody come up to me and they were super nice, and it was a super huge compliment. And they said, “Oh, now that you’re kind of getting out there in the world, you probably need people to help sew for you. Let me know. I would love to sew for you.” And I said, “I appreciate that, but the minute that I can’t make my own quilts, I’m going to quit.” Because that’s what I want to do. I don’t want to do the video editing. I don’t want to do all the marketing. I want to do the sewing. So if I ever get to the point where I’m not doing the sewing, then I’m in the wrong business.
Carolina Moore:
I know. I always said that the first hire that I really should do would be someone to come clean the house, right?
Christa Watson:
Oh, and I do have that. Yes, I do. That one is a non-negotiable.
Carolina Moore:
Right? But if I’m going to farm out the things that I don’t want to do, let’s farm out dishes, laundry, mopping, vacuuming, wiping down, all these things. I don’t want to do these things. Let’s have someone do those things first. And maybe, I mean, I do love cooking, but-
Christa Watson:
That’s awesome.
Carolina Moore:
Also, I wouldn’t mind farming some of that out sometimes as well.
Christa Watson:
Yeah, exactly. The one thing that the pandemic taught us that really actually we stuck with is we get our groceries delivered. That’s another thing that you just say, oh, it’s just simple. But where I live, I’m in Las Vegas and we’re in the desert and we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere. The nearest grocery store is like 10, 15 minutes away, so it’s not like an easy drive.
And so we started having grocery delivery service, and I tell you, oh my gosh, that is the non-negotiable for me. I think we went on vacation and we had to go to the grocery store when we were on vacation. I was like, I haven’t been inside a grocery store in months. And so that is the one little perk that we do pay for, is we do have grocery delivery, and it frees up my mental space. It frees up just so much time. So I’m getting there, yes, with the house cleaning and the grocery delivery, but next is the graphic design and the social media and all that. But one step at a time.
Carolina Moore:
Look at that. See, you did the pandemic right and you learned time saving tips. See, I did the pandemic where I learned how to make bread, and so now it’s like I feel like I need to make my own bread every week. And I just added more to my plate.
Christa Watson:
Move back to Vegas and make me some bread. That would be awesome.
Carolina Moore:
Oh, I will be out there in a couple weeks, so we’ll have to see if we can connect.
Christa Watson:
That’d be awesome.
Carolina Moore:
Before we go, though, let’s make sure that people know all the places that they can find you, connect with you, find your notions, and follow your journey.
Christa Watson:
Well, I’m everywhere at Christa Quilts, and that’s Christa with a CH. So Instagram is @ChristaQuilts. My blog, which is kind of the hub, is christaquilts.com. My notions can be found in most quilt shops. If you don’t have a quilt shop near you, I do sell them online at shop.christaquilts.com, so you can find everything there.
And one little last tip I’ll leave you with, if you have a name like mine where there’s multiple spellings, so my name is Christa with a CH, I actually own several domain names with my name misspelled because people can email me [email protected] and they’ll spell it wrong two different ways. So I own all the misspellings of my name. So if you do happen to misspell it, you’ll probably still find me. But yeah, Christa’s Quilts everywhere.
Carolina Moore:
That’s so funny. So clever. Christa, thank you so much for your time today. I just loved hanging out with you. You can check out the show notes to get more details on Christa and follow her journey because I’m sure she has more stuff for us soon.
Christa Watson:
Well, it was a pleasure to talk with you, and yeah, we’ll totally have to hook up when you come to Vegas. It’s always fun here.
Carolina Moore:
Friends, that’s our episode for today. I hope you loved it as much as I loved having this conversation. I love learning all these tidbits and details about our favorite notion designers and the stories behind our favorite notions. Remember that you can find all the details that we talked about in the show notes, and those are all at ilovenotions.com.
And make sure to leave this podcast a review in your favorite podcasting app. Leaving it a review will let people know that maybe they should listen as well, and it will help the podcast algorithm show this podcast to other people who love notions just as much as we do. Friends, that’s all I have for you today, but I will see you right here real soon. Bye for now.