The Crazy Quilt

Aug 26
15:48

2011

Tricia Deed

Tricia Deed

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It is time to make a party quilt called the crazy quilt. Get wild with your stitchery and embellishments. Have fun making a quilt which will free your creative impulses to be wild and crazy.

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All quilts have batting except one. It is known as the crazy quilt. This is a party quilt; free and wild stitchery fun. It follows no rules and it hears a different drummer. It has a passionate rhythm seeking the artist within you. Have you made a crazy quilt?

The crazy quilt historically seemed to reveal financial status success and leisure. The fabrics used were silks,The Crazy Quilt Articles velvets, and favorite clothing fabrics of the times. The crazy quilt was used primarily as decorative art, furniture throw, a table top, a piano cover or a wall hanging.

This quilt was not considered practical or useful because of the silks and velvets. You had to be financially well off to afford those fabrics. And if your husband or family were wealthy you had leisure time to do needlework. Leisure and silks were the luxury items.

Today we can continue the traditions of the past if we wish. Our fabrics are more affordable and leisure time seems to be plentiful, but that can be debated. It is our love of quilting whereby we make the time to sew these projects between employment, family, and personal responsibilities.

The crazy quilt can also serve as a family album or scrapbook. By tradition this quilt used fabric and clothing scraps used by family members. Embroidery stitchery was used to insert special occasions with dates, initials, or names of loved ones and to decorate exposed seams and errors. Much embroidery is the mark of a crazy quilt. You can use free and wild stitchery or traditional embroidery stitches.

The women of earlier years took months to hand stitch; we can make the same quilting project in a matter of hours. We can machine stitch or hand stitch a copy of a pattern from the eighteenth century or we can create our own design.

Imagine what it would be like sewing a crazy quilt into a great family wall handing of important moments. Combine scraps of fabric from first baby, birthdays, weddings, school events, sport events, dance events, and many other occasions. Photos can be inserted. Special buttons, pendants, military medals, and pieces of jewelry or ribbons or chains, etc.

Use your imagination to make clothing accessories of neck collars, hats, belts, scarves, jewelry, and vests. Use all the colors you enjoy; subdued or loud and bold. Use all types of fabrics to create an assortment of textures and interests.

Start piece construction of the crazy quilt to a foundation fabric of muslin or cotton. There is no batting on completion. The foundation piece can be one large square or a combination of squares which have been sewn together to form one large foundation square. The complete foundation is utilized as front and back.

You are painting a canvas. Do as you please. Place the different cuts of fabric where you wish, then embroider your seams and cover errors or rough edges with appliqué and more fancy stitching of choice. Then go crazy with embellishing.

Make a crazy quilt today. Visit the hobbies section of Infotrish at http://www.Infotrish.com  Review Quilting Gems. Do not forget to download a free quilting pattern.