did I mention this one?

A spectacular crazy quilt saved from an odd fate.  I got in contact with the donor only to discover that she had in fact rescued this quilt. She found it at a garage sale. The woman selling it said she didn't want it, but she had retrieved it from her sons who were planning to make a fort out of it! 

It's an odd piece - very long and narrow made of two large joined squares. At first there was some thought that it might be a coffin quilt, but closer examination shows that both long sides show seam lines where stitching has been removed... but if there were more similar panels it would have been an huge quilt indeed. So... still lots of questions.

Though we don't have any good provenance on it, it has some important local content - number of early commemorative ribbons, including this one from the Women's Ontario Hockey Association - 1901.

 

 Personally, I like the back.

It reminds me of African bark cloth

Just for fun

I went with the sashing. It certainly changed the character of what was a gentle old fashioned, charming look to something a bit more exuberant and funky. I like it, though I may have pushed it a little too far. It overwhelms the original squares a bit... but this is about fabric and fun and being light in spirit - so nothing to get too critical about.

 I found a bundle of 24 cotton crazy quilt squares at a second hand shop. The fabrics mostly look to be from the 40s and 50s, but a few charming ones look to be earlier - maybe 1920.





They're foundation pieced on old cotton sugar bags.


 

With a little trimming, they're now ready to stitch together. The question is - to sash or not to sash?  To stay true to the quilt as it is, or to add just a little funky new-old-fashioned bits for the fun of it?

 

Time to Finish

I've been waiting (and pondering how) to overcome an artist's block, thinking that some new ideas will come to the fore soon enough... but no. I had set aside a number of unfinished projects so that my mind might be cleared of many stray designs and developments. However I think that the course of wisdom, and hopefully creativity, is to complete 6 or so projects that stare at me every day. Some are small, but still have a lot of hand stitching - the four sitting on the drafting table (not including the flying geese pattern underneath)...

...and some larger projects which require hand or machine quilting:

I

End of November, hopefully, these will all be done, and I will have some fresh ideas. There is one percolating about winter, because I have some beautiful fabrics that would suit the project...

... but it's time to finish a few things first.