Showing posts with label hand embroidery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hand embroidery. Show all posts

Thursday, July 26, 2012

How to make a Crazy Quilt

feather stitching
Learning to Crazy Quilt


The time and skill to make a quilt whether it's geometric or a Crazy quilt requires time and patience. Add a cup or two, of love and we have a passion, that may even be considered an addiction. At least, it's a constructive activity that can bring great joy to the artist. 

Constructive activities are preferable in today's society and what better way to pass time than through creating one's own crazy quilt? The choice of size and type of project can range anywhere. A few idea's to apply crazy quilting can go as follows;

      - Clothing, vest, jacket, skirt, ruffles
      - Home Decor, bedding, table runners, place mats, sofa throw, wall hanging
      - Accessories, purse, travel bag, storage tote
      - Pets, pet couture, pet carrying case, pet bed
      - Holidays, tree skirt, stocking, wall hanging
      - Gifts, birthday, anniversary, congratulations, baby shower, bridal
      - Sports, yoga mat bag, sport tote bag, golf sock

Creating a crazy quilt doesn't necessarily have to stay in the realms of a quilt. It can be applied as a decorative edging to any project. Let your imagination explore the possibilities. I hope you share your idea's and projects here also. I'd love to hear from you.



I hope you found this article informative, inspiring and enjoyed the slide show. Please feel free to leave your comments, link to me, subscribe by email or RSS feed. Also, you can email me to say hello, make a order or to share your own idea's and projects.

Article(C)2011 GG9909, all rights reserved.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Embellishments, Crazy Quilts and Projects


The artist in the world of crazy quilting, has a passionate affair with embellishments next to embroidery and sewing. One cannot imagine the delight to be found in this particular area of quilting. Mind you, embellishments aren’t just relegated to a crazy quilt but have been around in the clothing industry for - well, a very long, long time as mentioned in my Sewing Chronicles article.

Fabric offers the artist, a blank canvas to work upon. Now who wouldn’t take delight in filling up all this ‘space’ with this, that and the other thing? how many people would get bored, just looking at a ‘empty’ space? how long would you last? I’m not suggesting hoarding, but least, we like to hopefully ‘decorate’ a space at least, pleasing to the eye for not just ourselves but for others to enjoy.

Embroidery is a embellishment and applied in a variety of colors and stitches on, over and around, the seams of each quilt ‘block’ in a crazy quilt. It can be applied to other sewing projects besides quilting. It does require patience and care in use of colors,  for visual appeal and interest.

Embellishments to add to a crazy quilt besides embroidery can be an array of objects or more stitchery. Items such as the following can be added ;

- beads - sequins
- rhinestones - cabachons
- lace - appliques
- buttons - charms
- tatting - ribbons

Sources to locate these items can be craft stores, sewing supply shops, thrift stores, craft guild members, family and friends. There will be costs to consider therefore best to investigate first before deciding upon your purchases. If you have other idea's, please share them in the comments.

I highly recommend visiting your local quilt show and visit a Crazy quilt booth. I am positive you will find them irresistible and beautiful. Every quilt on display will vary in design and embellishments so pay attention to the details. As I’ve said numerous times, no two quilts are the same. Also, don’t be shy to speak with the artist about their quilts, and if interested in purchasing one, enquire about payment options. One can also visit  museums to view antique crazy quilts.

Extra Resources

Needlework Tips and Techniques

The Embroiderers Association of Canada, Inc.

Sublime Stitching 


I hope you found this article informative. Please feel free to leave your comments and share your own thoughts, experiences and/or observations. Send me a email if you are interested in placing a Order, visit my Gallery, or say hello. It's FREE to subscribe by Email or my RSS Feed.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Holiday Gifts Crazy Quilt Wall hanging

The Christmas holidays are upon us and ideas galore swim through our minds. Some gifts are easy to choose for friends and/or family whereas ideas for others may leave us stumped and we wander through store after store trying to get inspired.

One gift idea can be giving a handmade home decoration such as a Crazy quilt wall hanging. Now why choose this? Home decorating can be fun for everybody but will depend on personal taste and styles. One has to like color, details and whimsy since a crazy quilt encompasses these qualities.

The days of yore with castles and monarchies, wall hangings and tapestries, of all sizes, were used for decorative purposes. Royalty, monasteries, nobility, wealthy merchants and farmers were the main patrons of fiber artists to provide these decorative pieces for their homes therefore were quite splendid and beautiful. These wall hangings and tapestries also sharpened the acoustics of a room. This particular piece of home decoration slowly diminished over time changing fiber crafts into industries.

A crazy quilt wall hanging can be made in various sizes, colors and embellished with embroidery, ribbons, beads, buttons, lace, charms, and assorted embroidered designs. Fabrics can range from simple cottons to expensive silk, satin, velvet and brocade. It’s the finished product that will provide the visual delight, interesting topic of conversation, become a art collection, and one-of-a-kind showcase gift.

Crazy quilt wall hangings are gaining popularity amongst art collectors due to the skill and labor involved in the creation not to mention, no two quilts are the same. We can give three colors of fabric to three individuals and each will piece it together with their own distinct style and therein lies the beauty of a crazy quilt.

A crazy quilt wall hanging can be found online with a search query. Numerous quilting guilds can also be found online and in our telephone books. It’s considered a textile and/or fiber art and can be a collector’s item. As I mentioned before regarding choice, it’s best to choose one for somebody who can appreciate something beautiful and unusual. I wish you a Merry Christmas, safe and Happy New Year!

I hope you enjoyed this article. Please feel free to leave your comments and share your own observations. Send me a Email if you have a request on a topic of interest, place a Order or to say hello and visit my Current Projects gallery. It's FREE to join my Fan club, subscribe by Email or my RSS Feed.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Quilt Fashion Sense

The rules of fashion is individual as each person in choosing their clothing style. History tells us that clothing has been been used to send the message of our place in society and express our identity without verbal communication necessary. Fashion trends are known to change when the style has saturated the market and ceases to be distinctive.

The world of sewing includes the fashion world therefore only natural that a touch of our quilting skills get added. This may be the simple addition of applying a applique, quilt blocks or embellisments with embroidery. Not everybody wants to follow the crowd of fashion trends so adding or creating our own finishing technique can help set us apart. Look at how the many music bands and singers will have their own fashion styles going on.

Quilt blocks can be added as decorative edging, insert, or a whole garment. Colors will coordinate, complement or add contrast and change the overall appearance. We can have clothes that are fun and playful, romantic, daring, conservative and whatever mood happens to inspire the creation. It's a process that's open to the imagination of the owner. Even people with no sewing skills will seek out somebody who can make the addition to their garment -same as the fashion designer assigns such tasks to the seamstress.

Applique designs are added atop as a layer to the garment and can be simple or complicated depending upon the effort one wants to apply. Appliques can be sewn by hand or machine and embellished with embroidery, fabric paint or beads for a extra decorative effect. Decorative embellishments such as the afore mentioned can again, be simple or complicated depending upon the effort one is willing to put into producing the finished product.

One project involving my joy of Crazy quilting -I up-cycle some skirts for myself,friends and family is with adding a crazy quilted ruffle to A-line skirts. This changes the length and I enjoy wearing semi -long skirts.  We know that crazy quilting can have a haphazard look therefore one will get a 'distinctive' appearance with the various shapes and colors. The addition of embroidery and other embellishments allows the 'artist' in me to get creative. I prefer not to add a lot of embellishments since I don't want the weight of the ruffle to have my skirt hanging wrong when wearing it!

Ruffles on a skirt come in different shapes and are easy to add. We can take any skirt with a ruffle pattern and convert it into a unique piece to call our own. Other gals admired my skirt and requested skirts of their own and each one is different and I don't have to worry about a 'duplicate' skirt to compete with my own. I use a very light fabric for the foundation to lay my crazy quilt fabrics and line the back before attaching it to the body of the skirt. Lining the back will hide my sewing and embroidery threads.

The profession of the clothing designer is competitive and associated with creativity and glamour. Who doesn't want to create their own 'haute couture' fashion statement that may lead to inspiring a trend? So go ahead, take a look around and see how you can set yourself apart with your own project and step out with your own personal fashion statement.

I hope you found this article informative. Please feel free to leave your comments and share your own observations plus give your Vote. Send me a email if you have a request on a topic of interest, place a Order or to say hello. Feel FREE to Follow, subscribe by Email or my RSS Feed.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Sewing Chronicles


Sewing is the use of a thread and needle to stitch two pieces together forming one piece. Sewing has been around since the Prehistoric ages. I'm sure we are quite familiar with the fashions of the Homo sapiens neandertalensis, Cro magnon, Ardipithicus ramidus, Homo habilis and other homonids listed in the standard taxonomy of human evolution. We can always visit our local museum.

The types of 'thread' used varied from fibres, sinew, veins, and plants. Fibres were gathered from different parts of a plant such as bark, stem, leaf, husk, seeds, and even grass. Sinew and veins were gathered from animals. Unfortunately, very few samples from ancient civilisations have survived since natural fibers are perishable.

Needles were made with bone, ivory, wood, and thorns. They served only utilitarian purposes only. Some were made to serve more like awls and most likely to puncture tough materials such as bark and hides. Eyes in needles would not be invented until about 17,500 BC.

Today, Threads usually consist of two or more plys of yarn and twisted tightly
together. They are spun onto spools or cones and labelled with length, type of fiber, and name of the manufacturer along with the price. Some threads are made of basic cotton while others are used to match the fabric such as silk. Dyes provide us with every color possible but that's a different topic altogether.

Needles have also evolved to serve different functions. We will have beading needles for seed beads, upholstery needles, embroidery needles, yarn needles. Each needle will have their individual manufacturing process to withstand their designated use. Stitching by hand was done for thousands of years till the invention of the sewing machine (1845, Elias Howe & Singer) which changed the whole industry.

The world of Crazy quilts, embroidery evolved from sewing. As we know, sewing is stitching and embroidery is the use of decorative stitching and adding ornamentation. Embroidery adds a sense of quality and durability that no amount of printing or painting can achieve.

Hand embroidery can be expensive because it's time and labor intensive for the artist whereas costs are lower with the machine embroiderer and service is far quicker. The overall value of which type of embroidery is preferable - will be the personal choice of the customer.

I hope you found this article informative. Please feel free to leave your comments, share your own observations, share with others, link to me and give your Vote. Send a Email if you would like to place a Order today.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Fabric Foibles

The world of quilting regardless the type of quilt being assembled starts with notions, a sewing machine, a pattern, fabric and the artist. If you peruse through the many available blogs online or even have a neighbor, who quilts, a common foible can be found with fabric.

As we know, fabric is any woven, knitted or pressed cloth, such as velvet, satin, canvas, linen, silk, felt and flannel, etc. They all have a different texture and quality all their own.
Fabric has been discovered to be around since prehistoric times and has changed over time especially during the industrial age. Read the interesting history of fabric --> here.

Today, fabric can be found in many colors, textures, qualities and designs. For the quilter, fabric is eye candy and wildly stirs the imagination and creativity. Peek into their work room and you may find shelves overflowing with fabrics of one color after another. Why? each one of those fabric pieces may already be a part of a quilt, in the mind of the artist.

Unfortunately the world of fiber art now has it's contraints too. Fabrics can be stamped as a 'Not for Commercial Use' product. A fabric designer has decided their fabric cannot be used towards creating a new product for resale. It will be considered copyright infringement.

The idea of freedom to express oneself with fabric in the quilting world, now forces one to approach with caution when shopping for fabric, to respect the rights of another artist. Many question this practice since it seems to put up a roadblock regarding the fabric. Curious questions arise. On one side is the fabric designer, they will allow for private use only. One can make a dress, curtains or whatever for private use whereas the clothing, home decor or quilting artist cannot use it in their own creations, for resale to the public. What if a client buys the fabric but commissions another artist to create a product? A fine line indeed to consider. All I can suggest is that we double check when shopping for fabric, to prevent finding ourselves in trouble. Just look at the selvage on the bolt of fabric to find out if it's been stamped.

I hope you found this article informative. Please feel free to leave your comments and share your own observations plus give your Vote. Send me a email if you have a request on a topic of interest, place a Order or to say hello. It's FREE to Subscribe by Email or my RSS Feed.

Article(C)2011 GG9909, all rights reserved.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Passions of Learning

I had mentioned earlier that I enjoy the art of crazy quilting because of the 'freedom' it involves in choosing colors, layout, from start to finish of the quilt. I noticed while reading up on history of this particular style of quilting - that mistakes were deliberately made and acceptable. Wow, what?

Mistakes were expected to come with any finished crazy quilt because it showed a sign of humility. After all, pride is not a admireable quality. Now, if you think about those times - least for America - their main provider for moral direction - is the church, well, doesn't practicing humility,  make sense?

Today, crazy quilts are not quite what they used to be and even become commercialized. Quilts are presented in near perfect craftmanship to rival one done by a machine.

I just have a problem with the idea of 'perfect'. It doesn't exist and believing in such a concept would be akin to the idea of raising ourselves to a level that is unequal to others. We are merely human beings. I don't think arrogance and pride are quality characteristics for anybody and should be avoided, just my thoughts.

The flip side though is finding acceptance of such a idea especially from paying customers. General and accepted purchasing practices has been - lower prices for defective products. Now, how would one convince a customer - the flaw, however minor, in the quilt is in fact, a historic practice and tradition of the crazy quilt. Is there an answer?

I believe the answer lies in the fact that - a crazy quilt is individual as the artist behind it. If a 'gallery' of quilts was to be shown (I just may do this ) calling for a specific color. We would find no two quilts the same but they would all be equally beautiful and mesmerizing.

Crazy quilts would qualify as 'fibre art'. Wikipedia states that 'fiber art focuses on materials and manual labor involved'. As we know, art is chosen by a customer and their reasons will vary. It's been said that crazy quilts, historically were not functional but for display purposes only.

Today, a crazy quilt can be used but adds the function of being put up for display. Both types can be available and as stated earlier, is one of a kind as is the artist.

I hope you found this article informative. Please feel free to leave your comments, share your own observations and give your Vote. Send me a Email if you would like to place a Order today.