Since I'm putting my Marie Antoinette CrazyQuilt together, I thought I would share step by step, the process that I use to assemble my crazyquilts. I know other crazyquilters have shared their process but I'm sure we all do things a little differently.
How To Assemble A Crazyquilt
Step 1
The first step is to trim and square up the blocks. I use a self-healing mat and a rotary cutter:
You may be wondering why I have so much extra fabric. I like to stitch in hoop. Many crazyquilter's don't but for me, without a hoop, my hand gets tired Using a hoop also keeps my stitching from distorting the blocks. The excess foundation fabric is so the block fits in my 12 inch quilters hoop.
I always allow a 1/2 inch seam allowance. Again, many crazyquilters leave the traditional seam allowance of 1/4 inch. I prefer to leave a 1/2 inch seam for crazyquilts. The reason for this is due to the variety of fabrics and thicknesses. A 1/2 seam will lay flat no matter what fabrics are used.
The blocks for my Marie Antoinette quilt are 9 inch blocks. With a 1/2 inch seam allowance, my blocks are trimmed to 10 inches.
Now that my blocks are all trimmed up, I will start sewing it together. Due to the weight of my crazyquilts, I sew my quilts down onto yet another foundation. I'll show you how in Step 2.
