The photo on the right shows my crazy pieced banner “Crazy Batik Fans” on display at the European Crazy Quilt Festival in La Bourboule, France. It measures 66”x99”. It is an example of crazy piecing in a shape other than a square or rectangle. I pieced a kite shape then used 5 kites to make the large fan.

The quilt to the right is a perfect example of a low stress quilt. The block is made up of simple units (four patches, a single center square and squares made up of two half square triangles) but it has a more complex look to it because of the interlocking pattern.

This pattern is actually a tessellation (the same shape) repeated over and over, interlocking with its neighbors.

You can see the block has a four patch in each of the four corners, a center square and four half square units in between the fourpatches. 

All the construction is easy sewing and you can easily get different looks by varying colors and motifs (think how this would look done all in florals or all in batiks or in juvenile prints with solid colors mixed in).  If you really wanted to get fancy, you could occasionally substitute a miniature block of this pattern in the center square.

To the left is a portion of a quilt I call Spinning Stars.  Notice how the tips of the stars overlap each other.  This design is actually rather easy to construct using paper piecing.  The long skinny triangle pairs are constructed first then four of these units are sewn around a center background square using partial seaming. 

It's one of those patterns that allows you to mix fabrics to your hearts content and the black Kona cotton I've used as background really sets off the colors.  Technical note:  I have talked with the company that makes Kona cotton and their black fabric is consistently dyed with such a high concentration of black dye that most people cannot see any difference between dye lots.  This makes it easy to purchase more if you make a project bigger or run out of fabric.  Over the years I find myself using black and gray in my quilts more and more.

The second Gallery page features a cooperative charity quilt I participated on, the auction quilt for the LeDuc House. The quilt is a complex pictorial applique and the story behind the quilt (and the home embroidery business run by the LeDuc daughters in the late 19th century) is worth waiting for but I just wanted to warn you.  To view the LeDuc quilt, please click here.

The content of this website is copyrighted but you can use it for your quilt guild's newsletter if you credit me by name and give the URL of this website. I hope you enjoy browsing my site.