Crazy quilt idea

I had stitched the samples for the Eyelets and Flowers set on a couple of large pieces of fabric, with no thought to centering, or what would come from them afterward.  I liked the contrast of the fabric to the designs, so I figured that inspiration would come later.

After some thought, I decided that I wanted to do a sort of crazy quilt.  Now this is a revolutionary idea for me, because I live my life surrounded by symmetry.  If you look at my projects, most of them are symmetrical and I really have to struggle to do something different.

After sitting on the idea for a few weeks, I finally came up with a way to do the crazy quilt without driving myself crazy.  I started with an 11.5″ block and drew some lines in it to make it look like what I thought a crazy quilt block should look like.  Then I numbered each section in the order I wanted to stitch them.

Then I traced the pieces onto template plastic, making sure to add 1/4″ seam allowance all the way around each piece.  Then I cut each piece out of the plastic.

You will see that there is a gap between pieces 2 and 4.  This is because of the added seam allowance and is normal.

I then picked out 3 other colors that went with the embroideries, and also some yardage from the original blue and purple, so that I could cut out plain pieces.

The hardest part was fitting the template pieces over the embroideries.  Some of them were just not going to fit.  In the end, I got one of each template piece out of each color, for a total of 10 pieces.  I laid the template on the fabric and traced around it with a washable marking pen.  On the back of the fabric, I also marked the number of the piece.  I then repeated this for all the other colors.

Then I laid out all of the pieces, and stitched each block together.  I stitched #1 to #2, then attached #3, then #4 and then #5.  Be sure to press the seams towards the darkest color so that there is less chance of them showing on the front.

Then I put 9 of the blocks up on my wall and looked at them.  Then I rearranged.  Then looked at them.  Then I rearranged.  Then looked at them.  I nearly went nuts trying to figure out the right order for the blocks.  I wanted them to look like a crazy quilt, but at the same time, the symmetrical part of me was screaming to be let out.  I was really glad for the 10th block, because I could swap the blocks out one at a time.

Finally, I compromised.  It sort of looks like a crazy quilt, but is sort of symmetrical also.

Now I have to decide if I want to add some of the decorative stitching, or if I want to wait until after it’s quilted and add some lace and crystals.  Stay tuned.

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