Chris Sousa was artistic from a young age. He started as a professional photographer in the early 80’s and then worked in various aspects of the environmental industry for 30 years. After making his first quilt, he decided that he wanted a change and began to study textile history, color theory, art theory, and art history. To bring his art studies into the longarm realm, he learned how to digitize longarm quilting designs.

This quilt-life journey started 10 years ago when he decided to make a gift for his wife, a quilt for their bed. He wrote down some directions and dug out his vintage sewing machine and made his first quilt, a 120” x 128” kaleidoscope pinwheel quilt, tied, not quilted. Chris’s second quilt was a 96” x 96”, Loyal Union Sampler quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini. He felt that any quilt with 121 blocks deserved to be custom quilted, so he purchased his first longarm, a HQ Infinity™ with Pro-Stitcher™. Using the basic training he received from his retailer, he jumped right into quilting his sampler, entered it at AQG and won an award! He’d found his passion for longarm quilting and started his quilting business, CS Quilt Design Studio.

Chris and his wife, Pattie, recently moved to Arizona where he relocated his business and started quilting and teaching longarm classes and Pro-Stitcher classes at home and in connection with a local quilt shop. Chris’s advice to quilters, “Find your passion and you find your calling in life.”