Crazy quilting

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This article is about the textile art. For other uses, see Crazy quilt (disambiguation).
Crazy quilt by Granny Irwin, Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Tennessee

The term "crazy quilting" is often used to refer to the

fabric together), but a specific kind of patchwork lacking repeating motifs
and with the seams and patches heavily embellished. A crazy quilt rarely has the internal layer of batting that is part of what defines quilting as a textile technique.

Rebecca Palmer. Crazy Quilt, 1884. Silk, velvet. Brooklyn Museum
Tamar Horton Harris North. “Quilt (or decorative throw), Crazy pattern”. ~1877. 54 1⁄2 × 55 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Embellishing

Crazy quilts differ from “regular” quilts in other ways as well. Because the careful geometric design of a quilt block is much less important in crazy quilts, the quilters are able to employ much smaller and more irregularly shaped pieces of fabric. In comparison to standard quilts, crazy quilts are far more likely to use exotic pieces of fabric, such as

beads, or embroidery
.

Crazy quilts range from carefree and relatively easy, to extremely labor-intensive. A Harper's Bazaar article from 1884 estimated that a full-size crazy quilt could take 1,500 hours to complete.[1]

History

Detail on a crazy quilt
Detail on a crazy quilt

Crazy quilts became popular in the late 1800s, likely due to the

Japanese pottery with a cracked-glaze inspired the American audiences. Similar aesthetics began to show up in crazy quilts, including unique patterns, and stitching that resembled spider webs and fans.[2]

Crazy quilting rapidly became a national fashion amongst urban, upper-class women, who used the wide variety of fabrics that the newly industrialized 19th century textile industry offered to piece together single quilts from hundreds of different fabrics. Long after the style had fallen out of fashion amongst urban women, it continued in rural areas and small towns, whose quilters adopted the patterns of the urban quilts but employed sturdier, more practical fabrics, and dropped the earlier quilts' ornate embroidery and embellishment.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ "What Makes a Crazy Quilt?". The International Quilt Study Center & Museum. Archived from the original on 2015-04-12. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  2. ^ Workt By Hand Hidden Labor and Historical Quilts Archived 2014-05-23 at the Wayback Machine. Edited by Katherine Morris. Brooklyn Museum. 2012.
  3. ^ "The Idea of Fairyland". The International Quilt Study Center & Museum. Archived from the original on 2015-04-12. Retrieved 11 April 2015.

Sources

External links

Examples of ways of combining patches in a crazy quilt:

Learn more about crazy quilt history:

Crazy quilt exhibitions and examples from museums:

Modern crazy quilting:

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