Crazy Trails

I've had these thirties and feedsack reproduction fabrics in my box for I don't know how many years, over ten at least, maybe close to fifteen -- I used to go to Tall Mouse with the girls and let them choose fat quarters to make into napkins for their lunchboxes or for the big "Turning Twenty" coverlets I sewed for their beds, and it was like a candy store, looking at the different colors and setting them on one of the tables to decide.  I always found the thirties prints cheerful and managed to accumulate quite a number of fat quarters, as well as yardage from other shops, and a few years ago I said to myself, "I really need to make a thirties quilt with all of these."

I decided eventually on a disappearing nine-patch, inspired by the last post from Wool Palace Mary and even more by this one (which is lovely), and I cut my fabrics into four-inch squares and sewed up a nine-patch block to get things started.

And there it sat, for nigh on three years.  Why?  I don't know, it just didn't speak to me.  I'd see it in my fabrics box, think, "I should make some more blocks for that," and put it back.

Then not long ago, after receiving Amanda Jean Nyberg's Sunday Morning Quilts for Christmas, and looking through her alas-now-dormant blog, I happened to see a vintage crazy-rails quilt that inspired her to make a similar one for herself, and I thought, "do it!"

So I cut my four-inch blocks into 1 1/2-inch strips, and chain-stitched three at a time into blocks and the blocks into strips.  I decided to just let it go randomly -- that's the "crazy" part, as rail blocks are usually arranged with the colors symmetrically or at least in the same order -- and so I had only a general rule of not repeating a fabric in its neighbor blocks in the strip, but sometimes that just didn't happen.  "Oh well, it's 'crazy,'" I shrugged, and carried on.  A couple of times, sewing blocks in the twilight, I inadvertently put one strip wrong-side out, but I left some of them, too.  "It's 'crazy'!" 

I ended up with seventeen strips of thirteen blocks each.  This didn't seem quite big enough, so I found some Kona Cotton in "Bone," a sort of creamy off-white, and cut 5-inch strips for a border, which makes it now about 47x58 in. (say 119x147cm).  I thought at first glance that I wasn't going to have quite enough of the grey-and-white polka dots fabric for the back, but after fitting in the disappearing-nine-patch block -- had to, of course -- and piecing here and there, there is actually a goodish piece left over.

I made some scrappy binding using Amanda Jean's tutorial here (saving the leftover triangles because, yes, she does have a use for them, the fabulous "Up and Away" quilt in the Sunday Morning book -- you can see a reader's version here at Running Thimble).  The paisley fabric is one of my favorites.  Also the cherry stripe.  Also the white daisies on yellow, which is left over from my favorite apron -- and you know, ordinarily I'm not much of a yellow fan, but this makes me smile every time I look at it, and you can't ask more from a fabric than that.

I found some natural-white yarn in a drawer -- it might be Kroy sock yarn -- and Julia helped me tie the quilt, although she drifted away after only a couple of rows, whereas I found it rather meditative.  The yarn frayed more than I expected in the wash, so I might have to redo it later with pure wool.  Sewing on the binding took less time than usual, a pleasant surprise which I at least partly attribute to using 100% cotton thread instead of the more-common polyester.

Obviously, more than a few of the fabrics were going to end up next to each other in the rows, there being quite a number of strips from each fat quarter, but ... it's crazy!

My piecing is still a bit erratic in places, I'm quite aware of that, but I was very impressed with the fact that almost every single one of the great-many corners matched up very neatly when I sewed the rows together, which was a nice little boost to my sewing confidence, and the new-to-me binding tutorial -- Amanda Jean's method of joining the end to the beginning is a simpler modification of the method I usually use -- went without a hitch.  And so on the whole I'm very pleased with this as a beginner-ish quilt!

Comments

[dawninnl]

I love your quilt. It's busy and charming all at once. In fact I love everything about it, colours, border, scrappy bindjng and definitely the disappearing nine patch on the back. Oh and finally using those fabrics :)

[Carol]

Good for you! Very nice quilt.

I enjoy your blog and have found many interesting books from your recommendations. My ten-year-old grandson and I are reading aloud the Arthur Ransome series. So much fun! Thank you.

I came across your blog because I am a D.E. Stevenson fan.

[juliet brown]

That is adorably sweet - I just love everything about it - those little pops of yellow just perfection... perfect for snuggling up with an excellent book and a cup of tea

[Sarina]

Wow, you made such a lovely quilt! I loved reading all the details of how it came to be - it looks great and the border and scrappy binding form the perfect frame.