Crazy Quilting Again

I started a crazy quilting class this afternoon at my local quilt shop.  Diane is an excellent instructor, full of ideas and knowledge.  Interestingly enough, she also lives across the street from where I grew up in Swartz Creek and her kids went to school with me.  Funny how small the world is...  I spent this afternoon auditioning fabrics for the 16" square, and then basting them in place.  I spent this evening practicing my embroidery stitches, most people learn this as a kid, I am a late starter to say the least, and am nowhere near as good as I would like to be.  I was in a hurry when I left this afternoon for class, I had just finished freezing the bushel of peaches, so I didn't take as many fabrics as I wanted.  I anticipate that I am going to do much more auditioning and basting before I start the embroidery.  The process of crazy quilting is to baste fabrics in a somewhat pleasing pattern on a base, we are using pellon fleece, and then use fancy embroidery stitches to actually hold the fabrics in place.  No machine involved... Then you get to use ribbons, beads, lace, and pretty much anything else to embellish the square.  My class is a sunday afternoon once a month for 4 months.  We'll see how much I get done.  As Harold says, there are lots of irons in the fire right now. 

Ribbon Embroidery

This little (4" across) basket of ribbon flowers is what I did in 3 hours of crazy quilting class today. I have not really done ribbon embroidery before so I had to learn how to thread the needle (#24 chenille), do the knot, and make the stitches. Actually none of it was hard, at least not these stitches, but it was a bit time consuming. I'm not giving up the day job. The instructor gave us each a packet of silk ribbon, a needle, hoop, and this pattern that she had traced on a piece of muslin. She took the pattern from a Dover book for ribbon embroidery. She had some neat tricks, and it was a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Crazy Quilting

I went to my next crazy quilt (CQ) class today. I learned some new stitches, and saw a wonderful "doll" quilt made with 6" CQ squares. She had beautiful embroidery and had unified her design by adding a yellow inside border and putting the same yellow behind her fans on each corner. And she had rounded the border corners to match the fans, how cool is that? I started a new CQ design tonight, but decided to baste my appliqued baskets instead. I have decided I have to be in the right frame of mind to CQ.