How To Assemble A CrazyQuilt - Step 7

There's one final step in finishing a crazy quilt.  We need to hold the front of the quilt to the back of the quilt.  The best way I've found to do this is to sew buttons onto the back:

I simply sew a button on the back of the quilt at every intersection with the exception of where the sleeve is.  My stitches on the front of the quilt are hidden behind the trim.  These buttons also add extra support to the quilt.

I hope you have found this tutorial for finishing a crazy-quilt helpful!  I will have a final presentation of my Marie Antoinette crazy quilt for you next week.  Before I hang it, I want to show a few friends in person.

Be sure to see the entire tutuorial for How To Assemble A Crazy Quilt!

How To Assemble A CrazyQuilt - Step 1

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.

Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt Block #7

I wanted to share a photo of Block #7 before I start on the beading:

I use a combination of techniques to stitch my seams including my own charted Seam Treatments and Carol Samples Dream A Seam templates.

I like to do a lot of beading and embellishing so I think it's fun for my readers to see what the seams look like before I go crazy with the beads!

Scott is going to take me to the antique mall today and when we get back, I'm thinking of dying some ribbons.  I was asked to do a tutorial on how I dye my ribbons.  So I'll take photos and write as I do it.  As soon as I have that tutorial ready, I'll post it here.

Update On Marie Antionette Quilt Block 2

I thought you would all enjoy seeing an update on Block #2 of my Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt:

I'm getting ready to work on this for an hour before getting ready to go over to mom's.

In other news, it really hit me hard yesterday that my Simba won't be with me real long.  Although he seems to be doing better, I'm smart enough to know that Kidney Failure is pretty much a death sentence.  I lost my Francis to Kidney Failure back in 96.

Honestly, I feel like I just keep getting kicked in the head, over and over and over.  It's like there's this perpetual dark cloud hanging over me that just won't go away.

I'm have to take Simba for another blood test tomorrow and am eager to see what that shows.  I'll keep you posted.

I've added a few new things to the shop:

 

I need to stitch now.  I expect to have my Marie block done in the next day or so.  Have a good day everyone!

Update On Marie Antoinette Quilt

I did a lot of stitching on this the past 2 days:

These get quite heavy as I pile on the beads!  Those leaf beads to the right are not purple.  They're pink.  Anyway, I'll be stitching on this for an hour or so before I get myself together to go into town for groceries.

In other news, I added a few new things to the shop.  First, Kathi's precious little snowman watch:

And then mom has been making Christmas ornaments:

I'm not feeling very chatty this morning so I'll wish you all a great day and I'll head off to do some stitching.