Upcycled Christmas Crazy 2021

When I started the four central blocks of this Christmas Crazy it was around 2014. I was looking for another crazy quilt to provide me a winter of hand stitching, hand embroidery and embellishment. That winter was almost 7 years ago. The four blocks were complete and ready to incorporated into the new design by end of 2016 when we moved to Vancouver Island. But then they sat in a storage unit without me for another year.

I make all these goal posts because, so often I hear things like, "Wow, that must have taken years? or Did you do all this stuff by hand?" and it makes me think that many times, the task is soooo daunting to a person, that they become stuck and don't ever let themselves fall in love with the freedom of crazy quilting.






Early in crazy 2020, the year that we'll all universally remember forever. I leaned back on my busy life with building a business and trying to stay safe all at the same time, I decided to get busy finishing a few things and I've got loads of crazy quilt blocks to finish. 

So the time arrived and with crazy quilts, this seems to be the point of them, that they are so versatile, somewhat dated, but never grow old, even the old antique ones. They just keep saying "NO RULES QUILTING IS POSSIBLE"

Crazy quilting is fun and its doable on a tight time budget and a tight wallet budget. I always start a crazy quilt with a box of uncycled scraps, rarely does new fabric come into them. And maybe I'll make another modern crazy quilt like this one below. Modern fabric purchased new in 2010 made up this Baby Blue kinda child-like crazy quilt. I still thinks its mediocre and is not my favorite, but its done. I resides in our main bathroom.

On this baby blue crazy, I didn't do any kind of hand embellishment of any kind. It all blanket stitch from my machine in swirly shapes and was done using GAYG method, but something about these fabrics may be the reason I don't actually care for it?


I know why I didn't make another like this, its not really crazy quilting without the embellishments made by the maker. Back in 2010, not many in the modern quilt world were using the big stitch hand quilting and it was mostly solid color quilts of that time. Now, things have changed quite a bit and I do see big stitch hand quilting on quilts called 'modern' nowadays.

Finally, getting back to finishing this Christmas Crazy 2020 quilt.

I decided to go with finding a complimenting color scheme as seen with three borders so far. I think it makes the center piece pop, do you agree?


I had to make a slight adjustment strip to two of the four blocks because somehow they came out different sizes. And granted sometimes, it can happen, I am fine with it and so should you, if you find yourself being so relaxed you invested hours of time into without checking!!

So is my life, I am comfortable with who I am and where I'm going that I could give a flying figleaf if anyone wants to get onto my case for it. Quilt Police online be aware, close your eyes and change the site!

The third border of the same blue print seemed like a great way to go,but then once it was on, I was presented with a new challenge, to find something already in my stash to place on for the 4th border?

I pretty much turned my house upside down before relinquishing and buying a lovely blue winter print for the last and final border.

This project proves to myself that I can finish projects, sometimes I wonder, but eventually do get to finishing things. 


Happy Quilting everyone!

Carli




 

Comments

  1. Haha--no quilt police for my projects either!! I made one CQ a few years ago and so enjoyed working with "fancy" fabrics and hand embroidering them;[ by the way I machined the base together and then added hand stuff] . I often have machine stitched enough on a quilt to hold it together and then either finished by tying or some hand stitching...Whatever works, right? I like your Blue piece a lot...I keep telling myself "This is supposed to be fun and a hobby" --Enjoy
    hugs, Julierose

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  2. Some projects just don't seem to want to get finished, at least not without a lot of effort. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that crazy quilting is not on my to-do list, at least for the present anyway. I think I burned myself out when I was creating 4 projects each year for the magazine and now I have no interest in doing any more. Landscapes have taken over my world with knitting, crochet and cross stitching (mainly for the grandies) following close behind.

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  3. Love your cracy quilt and yes, the border looks perfect.

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