A Crazy Weekend

Crazy Quilting that is!!  A couple of weeks ago a few of us ladies from the Guild group decided to treat ourselves to a 3-day stitching weekend not only to 'get away' for a break but to take advantage of learning the skill of crazy quilting which one of our very clever stitchers is quite adept at.  We went armed with all our requirements of fabrics, beads, buttons, threads, laces, braiding, sequins, etc. really quite unsure of what was entailed even though we had studied our friend's work of art, but came away at the end of the weekend totally 'hooked' and inspired by what everyone else had accomplished.

On Friday night (after dinner of pizza of course) we set about machine stitching together shapes of fabric which would become our background.  

The idea is to choose a patterned fabric with at least a couple of different colours and then choose 2 or 3 colours from that and then match fabrics in a couple of different shades from those colours.  You can see by my piece that I chose pink, blue and white to work with.  Varied shapes are then cut and added to make an interesting and balanced patchwork.  You can also see that on my piece I added a strip of lace with a partial open weave for dimension showing the coloured fabric underneath. What really looks great is using different fabric textures or a single 'special' fabric to highlight and draw the eye's attention.  As this was my first practice piece I only used fabric from my stash so there was nothing really special about the fabric.  We had pre-determined the finished size and when we reached that point, machine stitched two rows of straight stitch around the edge and after trimming to size zigzagged the edges to avoid fraying.  I should add that this had all been stitched on a square of calico large enough to be placed in an embroidery hoop ready for the next exciting stage.

Now the next part is where imagination and creativity comes into play because by using all embellishments at your disposal you cover the seams however you wish.  Different threads were experimented with and stitching techniques used in association with beads and braids to give - what I think - a beautiful finish.   Let me say right now though that my crazy quilting piece is nowhere near finished as there is still a lot of work to do and it is quite time-consuming but seriously addictive.  It was so inspiring to see what ideas and techniques the other ladies had used and which could possibly be applied to our pieces of work.  The great thing about this was that everyone's work was so different and unique and I found the style and colours everyone chose to use really did reflect their individual personality.

The one thing that our friend/tutor kept telling us when we would become unsure on our next step was that with crazy quilting 'the rule is that there are no rules'.  Now that's what I call freedom.

Ros

'The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet' - Aristotle