Carli The Quilter

Do you love the look of crazy quilts but didn't feel qualified to make a crazy quilt? I'm here to tell you that I feel crazy quilting can be the conduet to more inspiration into your journey of becoming a quilt maker. Whether you've made many quilts or you are just starting out. Crazy quilts free your mind and your maker instincts to go CRAZY! Its simple and free-wheeling which becomes a simple block of crazy piecing or it can become an inspired landscape, a jeweled beauty of the kind that win awards.  Most times, the only criteria is that each seam sewn is flipped to the good side and pressed. Grab another chunk and sew and flip.  Covering each raw edge is one technique, the sky is the limit.  Adding the hand or machine embroidery is done as you go or after each block is all done. Its your choice. At this point, I'd really like to invite you to check out my Crazy Quilting Tutorial. Make your own one block or a set of 4 blocks makes...

Hi everyone! Spring has sprung in my part of the word and upcycling tops for summer fever has hit my sewing room. This top was a lovely pleated top when I bought it at a garage sale. But alas, once I got home and tried it on, it was shorter and I suspected that was why it was being sold. So onto my list of unfinished things came this sweet top. At the very next garage sale, I found an equaly lovely pillow case in the splatter pattern using lime green, black and white colors. This was a perfect fit for upcycling this linen top by adding in the bottom edge, a slight ruffle was sewn on to being showing just about 3-4 inches. But working with clothing that has already been washed and dried takes patience. Once the ruffled addition was on, I went straight to covering up the machine seam with hand embroidery. Black, White embroidery X stitches across the seam while leaving room for a repeat of a second color. I think it was very effective and I soo lov...

I've been playing with Contained Crazy Quilts for quite some time. I like to put borders around things, its true. I love putting borders around my scribbles, in my writing, doodling around the edge. I really like this border in bold RED and black. Pink Birds crazy block is a contained crazy block, I liked the calming influence of this setting the one crazy block inside its dark beige border. Now, for me to put beige anywhere near by work is a rare thing to see. Beige is not a color to me, I find it all too often in homes these days and can hardly wait to cover it up with some awesome orange or red paint. But this time, for this piece, it just called out for a low key background. Beige and pink give this piece a patient femenine feel as pint sized birds south, settling in like they'd been there all the time! But I'm loving getting back to making fun feminine clothing, some made from "new from my stash" and some upcycled from other cloth...