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| Fond Memories, Valerie Bothell 2012 |
When Allie and I were discussing what type of projects we would do for our book, we decided that one of the projects needed to be a down to earth workingman's quilt. About the time that we were working on these quilts, we were gifted with some absolutely beautiful feed sack fabrics. I instantly knew that I was going to use 1930's reproduction fabrics with my feed sack fabrics.
I also began to think about the fabrics that were given to me when my grandmother passed away. You see, she was a fabric hoarder. No wonder I love fabrics, I come by it honestly!
This is one of the fabrics that was from my grandmothers stash. I didn't even put a dent in it when I made this quilt, I have yards of it! I am guessing that this fabric is from the 1950's...I love it! After browsing through all of my grandmother's fabrics, I became very sentimental. When I would go visit her in the summer, she gave me free reign to use her fabrics and sewing machine. What fun as I made clothes for my favorite doll! As I worked on my quilt, so many fond memories of my grandmother came to the surface, thus the name of my quilt! She certainly wasn't perfect, but she was fun. She smoked ALOT and being 100% Danish, she would cuss in the Danish language if she got mad at you! Ha! (Don't ask me how I know!)
To make this quilt with the long skinny crazy quilted pieces, I had to get creative to keep the look still "crazy! I really love doing this technique and have made several projects using it. Pictured above is a small wall hanging I made for the Quilt Alliance as a fund raiser. I liked it so well, that I made myself another one!
At Christmas time I finished off a little UFO using this same technique and you can read about it here: http://www.pinkbunnykansas.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2013-01-01T00:00:00-06:00&updated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00-06:00&max-results=12
Then, in January, I decided to do the project pictured above. In this project, I used two techniques that are in our new book, Quilting....Just a Little Bit Crazy. The piecing of the long borders that I have already talked about, but also my method for piecing crazy quilt curves. I just love how it turned out and is by far my favorite piece I have made using the techniques.
I taught these methods for the first time in February to the quilt guild here in my hometown. As, you can see, they had a ball and I just love how their wall hangings were coming together!
Now, I know that you are thinking....Val, these are not embellished so are they crazy quilts? My answer is YES! Webster's definition of a crazy quilt is: a covering for a bed that is made of many pieces of cloth in different sizes without a regular design. Notice....no embellishments are mentioned! Many of you that know me well will be surprised that I have made some crazy quilts without embellishment, because hands down, the embroidery is my favorite part of crazy quilting. I can tell you that I love this technique so much that comes in at a close second! Anyway, something for you to think about!
Talk to you later,
