Whole Cloth Crazy Quilt - A Misnomer

As my first project for this blog, I'd like to share with you this wallhanging from beginning to end. I hope you'll come back often to see the progress and, hey, if it doesn't turn out the way I envision, maybe we'll all learn something anyway.

This so-called crazy quilt was the project I couldn't resist doing. I started it only because I had purchased some lovely hand painted silks from China to sell on my website and I wanted to come up with a way to incorporate them into CQ. Each of the silks is of one or two beautiful Asian ladies. Instead of these, you could also use any larger piece you like and design your embellishment around it. Added to this, I had earlier found a listing for a book called "A Book of Fancy Designs for Ornamenting Oriental Work" by Mrs. M. Haehnlen on a wonderful Yahoo list. You can download your own copy of this antique book at:

http://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/

I hold crazy quilt get-togethers several Saturdays a month and three of my friends will be working on a similar wallhanging too. I hope to show you photographs of some of them as time goes on. I drew the pattern in two sizes so that they could each choose just how much embellishment they want to do. This larger of the two wallhangings, when finished, will be ~24"x33."

The rectangle in the center will be a silk painting of two lovely Asian women. Small fans will be in each upper corner, and a large fan will be in the curved area you see at the bottom. I will be sharing each of these additions as I am ready to put them on the wallhanging.

I chose to use black silk dupioni because I love the way the thread and ribbon colors look on black. A few years ago I made a black bellpull, but I pieced it using different fabrics. (I will put photos up of this bellpull again at a later time.) One thing I like about that is the different textures of the fabrics. When you stand back and look at it, however, the background fades and the embellishment pops. So why not skip the step of piecing once in a while? Piecing also limits you on your seams. I love to piece CQ so I will absolutely continue doing it, but this, as an experiment, has been so much fun and much quicker to embellish.

The right side on this photo shows the basting I did before beginning on the large wallhanging and the initial divisions I made by embroidering "seams" to give it a CQ look on the left side. I took the basting out as I embroidered the seams on the left side. The white patch you see is my grid for the next seam. I then added more seams by building off the one just finished. You will find the only book I intend to carry on my website at this time, "Embroidered Crazy Quilt Seam Coverings" by Kelly Gallagher-Abbott. I love using her templates which make the dots you see on my grids below.

This is all for today. I hope you will check back often as I go through this and some other ideas I have on the horizon.

8 comments:

  1. I look forward to seeing more of your beautiful inspirations.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Maureen...this is Rebecca from the yahoo crazy quilt list. I love your website and I'll be following your blog here too. Kelly Gallagher-Abbott gave a talk at our quilt guild last month here in Colorado Springs. I wish I would have bought her book! I put my crazy quilts on my blog here. Hope you'll be able to check them out sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congratulations on the new blog and website. I hope you sell lots of thread ;0)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Congratulations with your blog! Thanks for sharing with us the quilt you are making. Very interesting and I will sure follow your progress.
    Hugs.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a very interesting approach -- your silk lady is beautiful and I'm looking forward to seeing this develop. I suppose you have to use a tissue "grid" in place of the seam that isn't there...I, too, use the templates from Kelly's book and love them. Welcome to blog land Maureen. xo Susan

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you all for your nice comments. This is going to be so much fun for me!

    The silk lady that I show on my earlier blog is not the one that is going into this wallhanging. I used that only as an example of how to incorporate her into crazy quilt.

    Yes, Susan, I placed the tissue "grid" in the desired length every time I wanted to "map out" a new piece to my faux crazy quilt.

    ReplyDelete
  7. YAY ... MAUREEN'S BACK! Congrats on your new site and blog ... you know I'm going to be following along! Love your idea for this whole cloth thing ... I've thought about doing one of these myself ... it is on my list of many things to try ... I was thinking to call it Faux CQ too!
    Awesome Bellpull! Looking forward to seeing more fabulous works from your hands!

    Hugs ... Marie

    ReplyDelete
  8. Maureen, I will watch this develop with intense interest!
    I am so glad you are here with us in blogland. You bring a most enriching presence.

    And I have to say....I just love what you have for sale on your website. All the supplies I love to use the most...there they are!

    ReplyDelete