Carli The Quilter

I participated with the lovely Jess of The Elven Garden who hosted the Jen Kingwell's pattern "Midnight Over the Oasis." I'm going to be completing this beautiful quilt this winter! So I thought it would be fun for you to see my incomplete Midnight Over the Oasis quilt top and to see all the other images on Google just for fun. You  can go here to see the hundreds of other images using this pattern. Its been a great experience for me to use someone else's pattern with only a few minor changes. I will make more of this one pattern as I fell in love with it. Happy Quilting, Carli

Hello everyone, I bet you are wondering what has happened to me right? Well, we decided to take a little trip to Vancouver Island and see if we can establish a winter home in a temporary sense. Its been lovely weather and windy/rainy weather, so hence no photos of the nifty shops, museums and restaurants that we've eaten fabulous food. The balmy, warm days of the south coast of Vancouver Island. Victoria, B.C. is really the Canadian version of the warm seas of more tropical parts of the world.  Without the swimming on warm beaches, we can take long walks on shell strewn cool beaches, where you can watch the placid Strait of Juan de Fuca loll your mind into total relaxation.   Except, we need a place to hang our hat instead of the spare bedroom. Our Rusty girl is down right confused with the all day eating schedule of the dogs here and without exception has gained a few more pounds that will have to come off our aging female Shepard/Labrador cross.  So jus

I just love hand work of any kind. When I considered participating with Sew Sisters Blogathon Canada, I wanted to invite anyone who wants to sew, anyone who sews into the joys of quilting. I aspire to become a slow quilter. For me this is where sewing is best empowering to anyone, even those who don't have a sewing machine can sew. Simplicity is where my mind spends time. Using up fabric from clothing, from antique blocks hand sewn by another and miraculously find their way into my hands. Many of you follow this blog and the hand work of embroidery that I do to inspire your own work in whatever form that takes.  This inspires me and around we go. Sew Sisters shop located in beautiful Toronto, Ontario is a shop that is bricks and mortar as well, its an online shop for our pj's shopping experience. For me, living so far from everything, I drool over the kits and fabric supplies offered at their shop.  It takes a bunch of time and effort to organi

If you remember the awesome tree in crazy quilting from the Piecemaker's 2002 Calendar, you'd have the complete version of this awesome quilt. Its quite an accomplishment really, its a large 12 month  calendar in textiles. Its been an admired piece that I could recall back to  when I was deep in thought trying to imagine where I would go with any block. I have at least 10-15 blocks of different themes and ideas on the go at any one time. This is the February block of the artist of Susan, I don't really know her last name, perhaps if you know, please post a comment and let us all know. What I remember about first seeing this awesome quilt, was that finally, I felt that the art of crazy quilting had finally reached main stream. Other options may have been known about for sure, but for me, it was an epiphany. It might have actually been the major shift in my thinking of crazy quilting as a respected form of quilting. As I  became a quilter, I belonged

Sometimes when I see crazy quilting and I must stop and zoom in to see the real hand embroidery of their crazy quilting work. I'm taking an hiatus from hand work due to some restructuring I'm doing behind the scenes and I love to share the gorgeous stuff I find, like this next crazy quilter out of Washington who also has a small Etsy shop and does some awesome work. Her attention to detail is impeccable and its draws your eye into the work, please do visit this blogger and start following her work. I am. Happy Quilting and do pop in to the work of Flora Bee's! http://florasbeecrazyquilter.blogspot.ca/2014/08/garden-and-flowers-rr-danas-block.html Carli

As you know, I've been on the hunt for interpretations of modern crazy quilting and I've found two for you here. First up is the intrepid Allie Aller in her newly minted design in this new book, Quilting the New Classics, you know its on my Christmas list. I've admired some awesome work from various quilters from around the world and Allies' work is most certainly on my radar! And this book is fresh out with this beauty in it, the book is the work of Michelle Muska at her website that follows : http://www.lolarae.com/blog.html I am on fire with the excitement around new ideas and new techniques that this book offers. This is one book that is on my Christmas list. Happy Quilting, Carli

I have been working on accumulating a post just for your reference to help those of you who are a tad afraid to take a leap of crazy into the starting block using crazy quilting methods. Over the next year, I'll be posting a short introduction to the new starts on crazy quilting. Follow along to keep up with the new wee ones coming along into the crazy world of crazy quilting. I've been lucky to find a few of my favorite bloggers who are taking the leap of crazy into making their first crazy quilt.    I really see some intentional steps toward individualized original work in this assortment of blocks making one big block. Now, this is just what I think about where Greta has plans to take this block, so stay tuned on Greta's blog Material Detachment. Greta has a unique blog and perspective on her posts which is what made me follow her blog in the very beginning. But now, after several years of seeing her photos and reading her blog posts. I think of her

Yes, I keep on with this, that each of you will find your own path in crazy quilting. I don't like it when others simply copy my work as is, so play with your own block using this as a guide to making your block for you! These are what four blocks of foundation fabric and your chosen scraps will look like when you've pieced your block together. Now, lets move to how to get started with Caroline's Crazy Quilting. I always start in the middle. Yes, you can start other places. I just don't like to have to do a ton of pinning and this is what starts to happen if you start in other places, but I'm not one to tell people it HAS to a certain way, remember I'm all about empowering new crazy quilters to do your own thing. Then you find another piece to add and sew it down on one side of the starter fabric. This is kind of complicated but not if you just play around and find a side to do this step. Press over one side of another piece and se

If you google anything these days, you'll find way more than any normal person would ever want on any subject. I simply googled christmas crazy quilt images and I got this, enjoy, its great to look at all the thousands of images that others have done, just so you can be assured you are not crazy either. Enjoy! Google Images for Christmas Crazy Quilts One of mine just for fun, you'll see more images of mine on this list as well. Sorry this is such a crappy photo!

If you have followed my blog for very long, you'll know that hand embroidery on top of a pieced crazy block is what I love to do most. As you can see in my work. Everyone who starts making crazy quilts becomes addicted, so I'm warning you. I think that each of us who gets into crazy quilting learns and leans on their style, its very difficult to leave your style and go somewhere else I think. Below, in the Smithers Centennial Quilt I did two crazy quilted embroidery pieces. I must say, that in my humble opinion, if its not embellished in some way, its simply not a crazy quilt. Embellishing can be all sorts of stuff, but again, I'm of the opinion if you just load up a block with lace, antique photos, beads, button or etc, its not keeping with the traditions of the beginnings of crazy quilting, which was the embroidered blocks with hand embroidery, never was any machine embroidery in those days. I prefer to use a myriad selection of fab