If You Love Quilt as You Go Projects,
You'll Love Crazy Quilts
And This Crazy Quilt Resource Tells All
While Traditional Pieced Quilt as You Go Projects
Use Patchwork
Quilt Block Patterns, a Crazy Quilt Lets You
Go Wild!
Even if you think you are not creative, you will be able to
take odd shapes of different kinds of fabric
and make something beautiful.
Plus - once it's sewn, there is no quilting required.
Date:
From: Penny Halgren
Greetings Quilter,
I've always been a traditional patchwork quilter. Give me a block that is divided up into squares and triangles any day, and I'll be happy.
During the process of discovering how to do a Quilt as You Go project, I ran across crazy quilts, and began looking at them in a little different way.
Maybe it's because I'm getting a little older and as I read more about crazy quilts, I realized that they were generally made as a collection of memorabilia, carrying family history or even general history from the time period they were made.
Or, possibly I'm seeing how fun it is to work on one block at a time, finish it and then have a whole quilt done without worrying about whether to quilt it by hand or on my machine.
In our recent Eavesdrop on a Telephone Conversation with Bonnie Hunter, we learned about shopping at Thrift Stores for cotton fabric in the form of shirts, drapes and other items. This is a fabulous way to get fabric for projects at a really reasonable cost.
So, then I got to thinking, what about all of the items at Thrift Shops that aren't 100% cotton? How about velvet, corduroy, satin, and upholstery fabric?
Then I thought about crazy quilts. What a perfect solution - a quilt that could be made using all different kinds of scrap fabrics, regardless of the fabric content. And an inexpensive project even if you don't have any of those resources around your house.
Which is actually my situation - no extra clothes or other items to cut up for a quilt. Yet making a crazy quilt still sounded like a fun project.
But where to begin? I thought it couldn't be as easy as just taking fabric, cutting it up and sewing it onto a foundation.
- What kinds of fabric can you use?
- How do you decide how to cut the shapes?
- How does the foundation work?
- Do you use batting?
- How do you choose the colors?
I had a ton of questions. So, before I started in on my project, I found a resource that had all of the answers.
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| With this resource, making a crazy quilt will be fun and easy. Plus you'll get to read about beautiful heirloom crazy quilts. Who knows - maybe someone 100 years from now will be reading about yours! |
I was just looking for some guidance for my project, and I got really lucky. My friend, Rosie, at Rosie's Calico Cupboard, had only one book about Crazy Quilts, and it just happens to be the "bible" for crazy quilters.
Judith Baker Montano is a crazy quilt expert who learned about crazy quilts in the 70s when she and her husband were living in Europe.
While there, she got to see some beautiful original Victorian crazy quilts which gave her the inspiration to teach herself the craft.
Starting out with a vest made from silk ties, Judith experimented for five years, discovering what works and what doesn't, developing shortcut techniques, and transforming simple embroidery stitches into beautiful embellishments for her crazy quilts.
Her Crazy Quilt "bible" includes:
- New techniques that make the creating a crazy quilt easy and fun
- Dozens of color photos of stunning crazy quilts (both heirloom quilts and new quilts), wearables, accessories, and more
- Detailed instructions for beading, lace, fabric painting, and other creative embellishments
- New designs for a total of 10 beautiful projects to get you started, including wallhangings, jewelry, pillows and an evening bag
- Historical notes on crazy quilting
- An illustrated stitch dictionary showing detailed "how-tos" for embroidery stitches for both left-handers and right-handers
Judith walks you through the process of putting together a crazy quilt using her unique method, showing you how to choose fabrics and lay the foundation, how to add decorative details, and how to solve any problems that might come up as you sew your crazy quilt.
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| You can make this crazy quilt in a breeze using the techniques in The Crazy Quilt Handbook. |
Take a look at the quilt on the left. It may seem to be a complex quilt, but as you look at each big square that makes up the quilt, there are only a few large pieces.
And the shapes are so interesting, too.
I took a look and thought "I can do that - and it looks like it might be fun!"
Using Judith's center piece method, you start each block with a piece of fabric in the center, and then add pieces around it in a kind of "flip and fold" method.
This secures the fabric to the foundation piece and allows you to add pieces that are very odd in shape and different in texture, and you avoid the hassle of making sure that everything lines up and that the seams are straight.
Judith realizes that beginning crazy quilters will run into problems, and she has the solution before the problem even occurs.
She knows that as you add patches, you may find yourself with an odd-shaped "hole" to fill. Sometimes the best way is to sew a fan shaped piece over the hole, ironing a seam allowance under the curve. That seam can them be secured using your embroidery stitches - no curved machine sewing!
Ready for embellishments? Judith shows how to creatively add cross-stitch patches with sayings or a label for your quilt.
Curious about options for ribbon? How about some Ribbon Prairie Points, Flowers or Leaves? She even shows how to make a Ribbon Rose.
Really, anything goes! And there are so many ideas jam-packed into this resource that it's hard to know where to start.
And you are not limited to making just quilts. In The Crazy Quilt Handbook, you will see how to make a vest, pillows of almost any shape (not just boring square ones!), and bags and pouches.
One picture in the book gave me an idea of a pouch that would make a nice gift for quilting daughter, Stephanie. This pouch would also make a great gift for a bride or a bride's mom.
And this Might Come in Handy, too!
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Include this so you will have hundreds of stitches to choose from as you embellish your crazy quilt. |
Our friend, Shirley, from C&T called and said that we didn't want to miss this boat.
It turns out that Judith has just come out with this Crazy Quilt Stitch Tool.
Sounds daunting, but really it is a treasure of more than 180 different kinds of embroidery stitches you can use on your crazy quilt.
There are a bunch right in The Crazy Quilt Handbook, but the Stitch Tool will ensure that you have every embroidery stitch you might even want for any of your projects.
It makes working on your crazy quilt portable, too - because it is compact and you can tuck it away in your purse or project bag - ready to give you inspiration as you work on your quilt wherever you are. Or share an idea with a quilting friend.
It is organized so it is easy for you to find just the stitch you are looking for to add to your quilt.
It also has a handy chart showing what kind of needle to use with the various types of thread and yarn. Now that is a real time and frustration saver!
These and other Crazy Quilt resources are available at amazon.com:
Happy Quilting!
Penny Halgren
Master Quilter
