Crazy Quilt Video

Happy Yule! Here is a link to a video on how I put together my crazy quilt, "Therapy".  May your holidays be lovely.

 www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG2AULs7T7Q"Therapy" video of my most recent crazy quilt

Sound the trumpets!  My book, "Crazy Quilts - A Beginner's Guide" has been published by Ohio University Press!

I am so grateful.  It was a long time coming and I appreciate all my family, friends and students who kept encouraging me. To quote, "Oh Brother Where Art Thou":  I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your reward. 

You can order the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and from the publisher.  Although the title states a beginner's guide, there are enough tips and info to satisfy intermediate and advanced crazy quilters and embroiderers.  There is so much photography (which I did), that it would make a great coffee table book too.  I discuss how I put my crazies together and the thought process of choosing fabrics and threads and beads, etc.  The first chapter is history of the crazy quilt during the last quarter of the 19th century.

I hope you purchase and enjoy my book.  I really hope you start adding embroidery and beads and all things beautiful not only to quilts, but to all manner of surfaces!

Have you ever added beads to a crazy quilt and realized you used a wrong color or something happened to the bead and you wanted to replace it?  On my latest project I was using acrylic pearls for a motif.  After the motif was finished, I ironed it carefully.  Or, so I thought!  The tip of the iron came into contact with one of the "pearls" and melted it.  I'm using the end of a scissors to indicate the offender.

Using a needle-nose pliers to grip and then break the pearl.  Squeeeeeeze until the pearl breaks apart.

The pearl is gone, but the thread that previously sewed it on is still there.  Leave it there.  You will sew a new pearl over this space.

The motif all better!  This technique will work for glass beads as well.