Tuesday, February 23, 2010

My Inspiration...or is obsession???



My quilt to study is this one, #59 Crazy Star. I seem to spend every evening staring at it and trying to figure out, "Now HOW the @#$* did they do this???" I am no stranger to string quilts, or liberated quilts, but this one just keeps amazing me. I had to buy the book because once I saw this quilt on the web, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
Is it strip pieced? Is it a log cabin (sort of)?? Are those little wedges of strings bigger pieces that were pieced and then cut up into several blocks? Sewn by hand (can you strip piece by hand?!) or machine (treadle?!) Each of those little scrappy squares are like miniature compositions. Yikes. This is absolutely the antithesis of every Amish quilt I've ever seen... oh I just love it.
I have no idea what I will make inspired by this quilt, or how to liberate it further (this seems pretty darn liberated already...would love to know more about the maker, and what her neighbors or fellow quilters in the community thought of her) ... but I'm darn sure gonna try something! Hopefully this weekend!

4 comments:

Rene' said...

Good luck. This is a gorgeous one. I've had my eye on it as well.

wishes, true and kind said...

My thoughts exactly -- if this isn't liberated, what is? It's a stunner!

woolywoman said...

I love this one. too. I like looking at stars, but making them makes me feel like my hair had caught fire. But THIS star, this is inspiring. I remember hearing about Gwen making a "floor scraps" quilt from a class-maybe that is the way to make the pieces little enough.

Tonya Ricucci said...

I know I said way back when that some of the quilts in the book were already liberated, no need to make them crazier. Whee, for you, working on this fun quilt. Definitely easier to break the quilt down and just look at one block at a time. so easy to machine piece, but arg by hand.