okay. not that you won’t pick up on this from the pictures, but i’ll say it right here and now just in case: i know crazy from experience and example. and i know quilting from example, experience, reading, and the occasional workshop. but the extent of my knowledge about crazy quilts is 7 words deep: i-know-one-when-i-see-one.
that’s it.
i raised my hand and said count me in with jude’s CQR idea, thinking WHAT IF i really do participate this time. (i am bad to sign up for online courses and challenges, envisioning the marvelous things i’m going to learn and create only to get to the last week and have to scramble to download all the handouts.) but today, after my sinus headache abated enough to allow me to operate scissors without fear of self mutilation, i decided to Start.
now i know we are revisiting the whole crazy quilt thing (whatever that is), and i know i need – i really need – to do something without thinking myself into a catatonic stupor. so before my brain knew what i was doing, i threaded a needle . . . then realized that while i had the idea of what i wanted the finished product to look like (sketched it in my studio art journal that i bought when i signed up for and intended to participate in that recent online studio art journal workshop), i had absolutely NO idea how to get there. rather than let my brain rev up, i cut out a base (that i would eventually attach my cqr to) and started stitching pieces of fabric together using the sewing machine because it was already so late and i had to have something to post today.
i listened to “the almost moon” by alice sebold (thinking of paula with each word), and as the main character wrestled with how to do something she‘d never done before (dispose of her mother’s body after she murdered her mother on a whim that had been building for a lifetime), i stitched this fabric to that fabric, figuring out how to do what i wanted to do: prune them into the shape and size i want; fold them over onto each other when they pucker in protest, saying “WHAT IF this isn’t perfect” when all else failed.
tomorrow – or maybe even tonight i’ll find a way to attach this crazy thing to the base. (you probably see where i’m going with this.)
my assistant, like cathie’s, was a tremendous help.
Jeanne, I do not understand. You freepieced fabrics together to form your groundcloth without a foundation. You cut a base to attach to the CQR. What is the base for? What does it do? Is it a backing?
hey steph, thank you for asking. was afraid this post would be as fuzzy as my brain after a sinus headache that had my entire face hurting. the base, as i called it, was first a get-me-going trick. then it became a size gauge. now i intend to attach the free-pieced blob to it and use it as a pattern because it is the shape it want the finished blob to be. basically that one piece of fabric that i call “backing” was the carrot i dangled in front of me to keep my brain happy and quiet. also it was my map. does that help at all?
oh, good, i was just thinking what if the block isn’t square? am i reading you correctly?
yeah, jude, you read me spot on. the beauty of being part of your what if posse is i’m free to think what if the block isn’t square? what if the block isn’t textbook crazy? what if it doesn’t lay flat? etc., etc. what i am trying to do (always) is to express without over regard for rules and such. some girls just want to have fun . . .
Thanks for adding to my understanding Jeanne. I just was not getting it, I thought it was a mental block, or something I needed to learn about CQR.
I understand carrots!
…and pushing rules. My map was going to be my green-cartoon until I read Jude’s post that she would match our block. I cannot do it to her, that’s my rule. (it’s 24″x70″)-ish…
not a mental block at all, steph. just my mental fuzziness that carried over into my fuzzily-written post. so glad you asked. it helped me clarify, too. don’t remember reading about how jude would match our block (or in my case, BLOB). jeez. guess i’d better trek back over and get clarity on that, too. don’t want to torture the dear one called jude. wouldn’t mind toying with her a little (think: smile), but torture? absolutely not.
First: I didn’t know Alice Sebold was writing DIY manuals now – Ill have to read it.
second: I did this exact same thing with my book. that is i cut out calico foundations for all my pages and then forgot to sew the patches onto them. on some of the pages I attached the calico to the back before i embellised the seams the rest of them i thought WTF and didnt bother.
third: your blob looks …ummmm….interesting. lol. Im curious to see what you do next.
fourth: WHY do dogs feel the need to lie like that – it looks so uncomfortable. s/he looks very sweet
hey paula, what if = wtf, right? at least that’s my (self-preserving) interpretation. so glad i’m in such good company . . .
OK. i’ll begin here by saying that i understood EXACTLY what you were saying. Uh Ohh. moving on…
i like that the “block” isn’t square-perfectly crazy
and i laughed out loud at your comparison of stitching your CQ block to the disposal of that characters mothers body….after killing her on a whim that had been building over a lifetime…
and your assistant……that’s a very unattractive pose….i’m sure he has a cute face
glennis, doing a blob instead of a block takes all the pressure off the remedial one called jeanne. just lucked into the alice sebold book, but how appropriate as both of us tried to figure out something we’d long been WANTING to do but had never gotten around to it till now . . .
Hey Jeanne. So far – so crazy!!
Hey – what the heck is YOUR assistant doing? Those little corgi legs are so delicious. I laughed so hard when I saw his picture and read your remark. LOL LOL LOL. Too funny!
P.S. I showed that picture to Gizmo who, immediately fell in love.