Crazy Quilt

I have finally finished my crazy quilt! I have to admit that I'm embarrassed because I started on it in 2008. That was the first time I went to Empty Spools Seminars in Asilomar, California. I took a crazy quilting class that year from Judith Baker Montano. She is an awesome crazy quilter, and a lot of fun as a teacher; check out her website and see some of her beautiful work.

Here are some close-ups of some of the stitching and trims I added to the surface. It was a lot of fun deciding what stitch or piece of lace I would add where.

Making a crazy quilt is almost like sewing two quilts. First you piece all of the background together, which is in itself a big project of deciding which fabrics to use and how to arrange them.

When that is all done, comes the work of going all over the surface of the quilt again, adding embroidery, lace, trims, beads, buttons, etc.

The above photo shows the "'08" that I embroidered at the beginning of this quilt.

And in this photo you see where I had to add "2009" because I wasn't finished yet. Little did I know...

The tough thing about a crazy quilt is knowing when to stop! Traditionally, each seam is covered with stitching or trim. But you don't have to stop there. There are so many possibilities. At some point you just have to say, "That's enough."

What really made me get my rear in gear was when I realized I would need to add a "2010" to the quilt. And I sure didn't want to add a "2011!"

In the above photo you can see the small "TEN" stitched where I hoped it wouldn't be very noticeable. And I can say it's done.

I finished it by adding some black fabric triangles to the sides so I would have an en pointe square. I fused some interfacing to the black fabric, so it would be closer in "hand" to the actual sewn part of the quilt. Then I added some very thin batting, and a backing fabric. I sewed the front to the back with nymo beading thread on the back with a few small invisible stitches.

It really was a pleasure to work on this quilt. And I can't wait to start on some more "fancy work." It is a lot of fun.