Crazy Quilts Are All The Rage. Just Wait Until You See It Finished!

According to Womenfolk.com: “Early quilts made in the crazy style were more show pieces than functional and were often made as smaller unquilted “lap robes” that were used to decorate the parlor. They were fitting showpieces for the lavish interior decoration of the day. These quilts were usually made using velvet, silk and brocade fabric, cut and pieced in random shapes.

What a perfect way for women to show off their needlework skills! Using silk thread, women placed lovely decorative stitches on each seam. Intriguing names like feather, herringbone, fly and chain describe just a few of the intricate stitches. The imagination and skill of the seamstress was the only limit.

Women were eager to incorporate this new look into their quilts and with the help of popular women’s magazines the making of crazy quilts became quite the rage. Creativity was wide open with women sewing asymmetrical pieces of fabric together in abstract arrangements. This enthusiasm for this quilting fad continued until about 1910.”

This is a great project for when it is unbelievably hot outside. Those are the best days to sit in the basement and play with my sewing machine… and on days like this I tend to go for Crazy Quilt blocks, which look awesome, are super easy, and require very little actual measurement. You can use these super interesting-looking blocks in typical things like quilts, but they are cool enough to stand alone in a throw pillow, wall hanging, or tote bag.

It doesn’t matter what sort of fabric you use in these blocks. If you’re just starting out, I’d stick to cotton, as it is the easiest to deal with. But I’ve done these out of silks and velvets and they turn out awesome (but definitely not for the beginner!)

Get a good variety of fabric, so you have lots of diversity in your square. And just remember that you only need tiny little pieces of fabric, so it’s a good way to use up scraps from other projects.

These look great with some embroidered designs on them, if you have a fancy machine that embroiders.

Watch how Cookie Gaynor does this in her step by step tutorial so you can get to making these crazy quilts!