Crazy Quilt

I have an antique Christmas stocking ... (made for me when I was born, so it is definitely antique),  that is hand crazy quilted old ties. It has been an inspiration for my interest in fibers and now I realize is what is driving me on my first and perhaps only attempt at real honest to god three layered quilting.

This still unfinished piece began with me embroidering on a piece of hand dyed and wax resist white Doupioni. Here it is prior to embroidery and shows different ideas about fusing on shapes. I was keeping my friend company as she recovered from open heart surgery and brought the piece with me to embroider while we talked. We probably had about 15 or so hours of talking and stitching and I thought it would be called "Conversation. It looked something like this... 

Of course it stopped before the magenta edge and was single layer and raw. ( Now I see that I really should be better about documenting as I go). That year I had a piece accepted to a quilt show but mine wasn't quilted... it was layered and stitched and I didn't see anything in the call for entry that mentioned three layers or padding etc. So off it went and it got in and when the actual piece arrived it was Fed Exed back to me so that I could do a nearly invisible running stitch through the layers... SIGH . So I thought I would use the "Conversation" as the basis for my first quilt. Well I added lots and lots til it grew from its APPROX. 18"X18"  to its current 60"x55" It is the approximately that has caused this to be an on going adventure.

Now renamed "Looped" it continues to lead me down the paths less traveled by me. My initial discovery was that one does not quilt from the outside in. Many stitched removed and asking folks who actually knew how to do it found my basting from the center etc. etc. It was then that I learned that I had gotten better at it but my initial center was wonky .... so my now very nice and squared boarders were just a little off!

So it has been back to the drawing board, or in this case silk scraps to wrap the hard edge in a more organic frame. Who knows if it will ever be finished. But it is "Looped""