Crazy Quilt

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Understanding Crazy Quilt

Beginning Crazy Quilter: How to sew together blocks?

I have been making a "memory" quilt for my 18 year old for the past year. It is made up of pieces of clothing, trims, blankets, etc. of her life--thus, the memory part. It started out being a crazy quilt and is now 24 12" blocks of busy, fun, chaos--each with its own personality. There is some theme of colors--mostly bright aqua, bright green, orange, purple, and hot pink. But there are also squares that are in reds and blacks and earthy tones. I decided rather than run the squares together increasing the chaos look, I wanted to seperate the squares with some unifying color strips between.

How do I measure this for a twin size bed frame? What kind of material would be best between the blocks? How do I measure and sew strips between my squares? How do I stabalize underneath the varying thicknessess of the materials (I did sew the fabrics to muslin backing.)? Ideas?

Answer:

Since you already have 24 twelve-inch blocks, I think you just want to add "lattices" ...also called "sashing".

What you use for those would depend on the look you want and the other fabrics you've already used. 100% cotton fabric is always a good bet since it doesn't stretch like many non-natural materials and is thin enough to join to other pieces without creating too much bulk. You could use other fabrics though if you want, and they don't tend to ravel or are too loosely woven.

As for the size of a twin quilt, you'd want ot decide if yours would be used all the way to the floor, or only partway to the floor (with perhaps a ruffle or other "skirt" going the rest of the way to the floor --or not). Measure the length and width of your twin mattress (or look one up online), then add the amount of hang you want on 3 sides and the amount of coverage you want at the head of the bed).

As for measuring and sewing the lattices, that's a math problem I find easiest to do on graph paper. Using the squares of the graph paper as *finished* sizes will be easiest, but you'll have to remember where you needed to add seam allowances so they'd end up that size.

Decide how wide you want the lattices to be (by auditioning them between the blocks).

I find it easiest when laying out a whole quilt on graph paper to get paper with the smallest squares possible so I don't have to remember that one square will later represent 2" or 4", etc.
Then on your graph paper, draw in the first block (say 12", if they are 12 1/2" when unfinished--ie. with seam allowances)... skip the next few squares for your lattice depending on how many inches you want it to be... and add the next block... then repeat till you have all the blocks and lattices drawn in ....finally add any border(s) you may want to increase the overall size of the quilt..

You can then see how long and wide each lattice strip should be for the sizes you want, though you'll have to add seam allowance amounts before cutting out.

Generally, short strips are added to 2 opposite sides of the interior blocks (say on the left and right of each--veritically), then long strips are used the other direction (vertically).
Any end blocks won't need that short strip though since one or two of their sides will have a long strip attached.

That sounds confusing if you don't already know how to do it, but many sites you google about lattices (or sashing) will have pics and instructions...here's one example:

http://www.craftandfabriclinks.com/quiltinstr/quiltinstr2.html

Adding a batting behind your sewn-together blocks (and any borders you might want to add for your "top") would even out the thicknesses of the various blocks reasonably well as long as the batting wasn't too flat. That might depend on how much difference there really is between the thicknesses of your blocks though. It might not matter much though.
You can try out several general types of batting after you finish the top, or even part of the top, by going to a fabric store where they have at least some batting on rolls...you can audition the way each batting looks and feels when sandwiched between your top and backing.

(stabilizing would probably be done by "tying" the layers in some way, since real "quilting" would be too difficult with as much thickness as you have)

What a great quilt ... know your son will love it!

HTH,

Diane B.

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