You may have heard that I have a lot of fabric.
A lot.
So why was it so hard to find and settle on the few small pieces I used to make this Crazy Quilt (CQ) block? I felt like I needed to go get myself some other choices! But I resisted, mostly because it was after midnight :)
My fabric is somewhat organized, but not easily sorted through. In order to change that, I will soon be packing it up, just enough so that my whole ~studio~ can be rearranged and get painted. It should already have been underway, but I was procrastinating. (There’s a shocker!) However, now I’ve been bitten by the spring cleaning snail (like the spring cleaning bug, only slower LOL) and it might happen sooner than … June or July.
I will find out just how well these fabrics work together in a crazy quilt block as I embellish it, but this is what my beginner-self came up with. On the right, I laid them out about where I planned to use them. The neighbors have to get along, you know :)
I needed to stitch together this little block so I could embroider and embellish it, and take one of the last steps toward honestly saying, “I’m a crazy quilter!” I’m almost scared to do it. What if I’m a terrible crazy quilter? 8-/
Here are some of the places I visited to decode how to piece together a block like this. There IS a method to the madness of these strangely shaped patches. Me, being who I am, had to get my brain all wrapped around it before I could try it hands-on.
- crazy patchwork lesson – solving crazy patchwork piecing problems by Annie Whitsed
- Allie’s in Stitches: Bars and Stripes…Day 7
- CRAZY QUILT PAPER PIECING QUILT BLOCK PATTERN .PDF-077A | AllStitches – Patterns on ArtFire
- CQ details FAQ – pintangle.com
And here are some examples of what I’d like to be doing soon! All styles; I don’t know which mine is yet: complex, modern, organized, antique and scrappy (where/when it all started!)
I mentioned a couple days ago on our facebook page that I’d taken my favorite sewing machine into the shop for a good and thorough cleaning, oiling, and check-up. I won’t be getting it back until the 6th — Saturday. I miss it. Are you wondering how I managed to put this block together??
I am sooo fortunate and lucky to have a back up sewing machine!
A friend of mine sold it to me a few years ago. I was worried that my favorite machine was going to do something terrible, like break down, in the middle of sewing my daughter Becca’s senior prom dress. The timing was perfect! It also came in very handy for my son’s senior project. I haven’t adapted to its quirks, but it is much lighter than my favorite one, so that makes it nice to take to a class or a friend’s house. But I love my old machine and hope it lasts forever!
Oh, wait. My old machine basically HAS lasted forever! I bought this half-ton — okay, 15 lb (maybe 20!) — machine in Texas almost 32 years ago! It has a fair selection of basic utility stitches of which I basically only use 4, is all mechanical, is yellowed with age and chipped in a couple places.
It has seen me through hundreds of happy hours stitching up anything and everything, and not just by me: Sam made a couple simple but awesome quilts on it — one was her senior project, too! — my hubby has sewn gifts for me and made a replacement for his ballistic nylon zip-closed book cover; Becca and I have worked together to make several things on it, my favorite being a messenger bag we customized to perfection!
We’re quite the sewing family, aren’t we?
If you made it through all that, you can tell I love my old machine that’s in the shop. If you didn’t make it through, just take my word for it :) I hope it is better than ever when it comes back, and gets a clean bill of health! I have a bit of fabric that needs sewing, and many more crazy quilt blocks to piece!
Gail
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