Crazy Quilts: Reflection

Reflection by Jacqueline Kublik

I was really excited to try my hand at a crazy quilt after recently creating a rag rug, but the amount of sewing required for this new craft was a bit nerve wracking. I haven’t sewn much in the past five years, not since sewing ribbons onto my pointe shoes for my ballet classes. And even then, the sewing that I did for dance was out of necessity to help hold up my ankles, so I never worried much about the appearance of my stitches. This was different; I knew that my sewing abilities would be on full display in my crazy quilt, especially as I boldly choose a dark thread and light fabric. Though I didn’t have a sewing machine, Kavita’s wonderful tutorial helped guide me through this sewing challenge.

I started off by choosing a variety of old fabrics and randomly cutting them up to create various forms. I then laid these fabric pieces down over the backing fabric and played a bit of a puzzle with myself trying to find the right configuration. After pinning the fabric in the right place, I began to sew. I was surprised to find that I was able to get into a rhythm once I had gotten a couple of pieces of fabric sewn down and began to relax and really enjoy myself. I even listened to an audiobook during my crafting, which made the whole process that much more enjoyable. Even though my stitches are not entirely consistent, I was really nervous for nothing and am happy with the way my mini crazy quilt turned out!

Reflection by Jane Nederlof

I’m sure we can all imagine that Victorians did a lot more hand sewing than most of us do. In my exploration of crazy quilts, I found that this particular craft is a great way to get a little bit of the hand-sewing experience without too much commitment. 

Although machine sewing is certainly an option for crazy quilts, I found it worth the time to embrace hand sewing. The pace of my work and school life rarely involves the kind of extended slow and quiet time (that isn’t as mentally engaging as reading or writing) that putting this block together required. It struck me that, as much as we can imagine the different rhythms and characteristics of regular activities in a different time, it is entirely different to actually experience them. I spent one weekend acquainting myself with needle and thread and was surprised by how much it forced my mind to slow down. I found myself wondering how much regular engagement in a monotonous yet productive and creative endeavour would affect my thinking long term. Do the slow and humble activities we North Americans pick up as hobbies compare to those in the Victorian Era? Or do the vast differences in our technologies and schedules fundamentally shift what we put into and get out of crafting practices? For anyone planning on trying out a crazy quilt, I would definitely encourage them to resist the temptation to watch a movie or use some other distraction while doing their sewing. What kinds of thoughts and conversations might we encounter if we let the time our hands need for crafting make space in our minds and days?

One hallmark of crazy quilts is that Victorian crafters used variable and exciting materials that were maybe lying around and available to be chopped up and repurposed. After making my quilt block I wished that I had gotten a little more creative with my material sources, even though the fabrics I filched from my mother’s scrap collection are beautiful. The random amalgamations of fabrics might be what makes these quilts truly “crazy”. Normally, crazy quilts would have involved quite a bit of embroidery, but I didn’t quite go that far. Maybe next time!

Reflection by Joe Diemer

I was eleven or twelve the first time that I attempted to sew a quilt. One of my friends had a cheap Walmart sewing machine and a bag of fabric strips from the thrift store, so we found an easy set of instructions to make a ‘jelly roll’ quilt and quickly got to work. Within an evening, the front part of the quilt was done. With some help from an elderly neighbour, who was much more experienced in the art of quilting than we were, we also managed to baste it (that is, attach the thick layer of batting and the backing to the quilt top) without too much trouble. Once the fun part was over, though, my friend lost interest and left the last part of the process—binding the edges together—to me. It needed to be done by hand, and I very quickly ran out of steam. I simply could not force myself to sit still and complete the tiny stitches needed to finish off the quilt. In the ten years since that failed crafting adventure, I have fallen out of touch with the friend whose sewing machine inspired the project in the first place. However, the unfinished quilt remains at my parents’ house—a neatly folded reminder of my own impatience.

I was worried about running into similar feelings of impatience when it came to the crazy quilt. I assumed that I would once again get frustrated by the tedium of hand sewing. However, those misgivings were soon overcome by the sheer pleasure of watching the project come together before my eyes. The process of assembling the scraps of fabric into a cohesive whole reminded me of building a jigsaw puzzle, and I soon found myself looking forward to finishing up my schoolwork for the day so that I could spend an hour or two in bed, watching Star Trek and working on my sewing. As you can see, my tiny quilt is slightly rough around the edges, but I don’t mind. I have faced my fears and found a new love of hand sewing as a result. And who knows? Maybe I’ll even revisit the old jelly-roll quilt.

Reflection by Kalea Raposo

I made my crazy quilt over the course of my reading break evenings, and I found that this craft was an excellent way to wind down after working on homework. The repetitive motion of hand stitching combined with the purposefully chaotic arrangement of scraps led to a surprisingly mindful experience: crazy quilts strike a balance between careful precision and careless fun. As I crafted, I noted that I was very conscious of how and where I was sewing the pieces together. But, without the limitations of a traditionally geometric quilt, I also felt free to experiment with overlapping pieces, clashing colours, and unorthodox textures.

In the crazy quilt tutorial, Kavita references the quilt maker Beverly Gordon, who refers to crazy quilts as “labours of love.” Indeed, I found myself forming a strong attachment to craziness the longer I worked on my square. I spent more time orchestrating my quilt’s haphazard appearance than actually assembling it. Yet, my favourite parts of this quilt—the cut out buta designs and lace sleeve hems—were actually impulsively constructed. I think that these clippings embody something of the vast assortment of materials and techniques used by Victorians (such as ribbons, beading, paint, and embroidery). If I were to make another crazy quilt square, I would love to experiment further with such materials (a crazy quilt bedecked with shells sounds amazing)! 

Gordon also notes that Victorian women made crazy quilts to “temporarily escape from the unsettling, rapid change that accompanied industrialization, urbanisation, and immigration at the end of the 19th century.” As news on the attack in Ukraine poured in, I found myself processing my emotions as I worked my way across my quilt block. During our current moment of climate crises, global pandemics, and senseless conflict I think that it is important to engage in activities that offer the opportunity to slow down and make space to think, be present, or simply escape for a few stitches.  

A Fairyland of Fabrics: The Victorian Crazy Quilt. International Quilt Museum, 2009, https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/exhibition/fairyland-fabrics.

Reflection by Kavita Premkumar

Quilting in my imagination, prior to creating the tutorial for the crazy quilt, is perfectly contextualized by a scene from one of my favourite novels, Anne of Ingleside, by Lucy Maud Montogomery. “Perhaps a new mother will hold her first baby under one of them,” said Anne, as a group of women complete two quilts on her verandah, “Or little children cuddle under them on a cold prairie night,” adds her friend, Miss Cordelia. 

I always thought of quilts as purposefully created for warmth. Victorian crazy quilts, however, are often deliberately created to be display pieces, with the key facets of their creation being the lack of internal batting and the meticulous compositional planning. They’re not really intended to be used for warmth in the same way as other quilts, which makes the creator’s fabric choices even more personal. The quilt I made for the tutorial was my first. I’ve moved countries twice during the pandemic (my wardrobe is cut down to the essentials), so I ended up making purchases of fabric for the quilt.

When I was done, I felt like it was horribly impersonal since all the scraps were cut from cotton fabric that I purchased from Micheal’s. Being doubtful of my sewing skills, I thought it was safer to go with one consistent texture for my first quilt, one that I already knew how to sew. I wish I’d thought that decision through more, and at the very least, thrifted the fabric so it would hold more of a story besides my thinking it was pretty in the fabric aisle. This quilt, of course, holds a special place in my heart as the first one that I made, and now holds a place in my closet, because we use our couch too much to use it for display, but I know this is only my first quilt. I know I will be making more, and I cannot wait to intentionally collect fabric scraps that tell stories of their own. My childhood clothes are in the mail from Singapore, and my friends are feverishly tearing through their wardrobes and the nearest thrift stores in search of fabric. I look forward to the quilts I will be making, quilts made from fabric with stories. Sewing the backing for a crazy quilt was always a community process, and now my collection of fabric is the same.