rikibeth

eternaleponine finished the Bear Parade, and is starting on another set of rockstar teddy bears... if you haven't seen them, you should definitely go over to her journal and admire. And take her poll, if you want any bears for yourself.

But anyway. While I've been contributing bits out of my fabric stash for the bears, and going along on shopping trips,

eternaleponine is very proprietary about her work on them, and so I wasn't allowed to help. And they were so cute and looked like so much fun to work on that I got a serious case of project envy.

That, plus the visual reminder of ALL my fabric scraps when I went up to raid the stash, gave me the kick in the pants I needed to start the crazy quilt that I've wanted ever since I was eight years old. I resolved not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and didn't wait until all my scraps were sorted by color, or the sewing room was clean, or anything else; I grabbed a large length of muslin for foundation, and loaded a double milk crate with a selection of ooohshiny scraps, and brought them downstairs, along with the book about how to make crazy quilts. Did the math, determined that 49 one-foot-squares and a six-inch border all around would make a perfect queen size coverlet, and STARTED.

On Sunday I got two squares pieced. Today,

eternaleponine needed the machine for working on bears, so I sat in the kitchen with her and got started on an embroidered tree that'll be the focal piece of another square, a weeping willow on a background of teal... um, it's too soft to be taffeta, but I don't know what else to call it. Silky dress goods, crinkly finish, not really crepe. I think it was from something

ghilledhu made. I've got the trunk and branches outlined in stem stitch; next time I work on it I'll fill in the trunk and add the leaves. I know I also want a cherry tree, and probably at least one or two more. I wish I had more of the leaf sequins we used on the Entwife's tree-on-a-leash poodle, but I used all the ones

ghilledhu sent me on the poodle itself. I know they're not practical, but this is going to be a dry-clean-only quilt ANYWAY, what with all of the velvet and brocade and tissue lame that's going into it in any case. I was actually hoping to use all luxury fabrics, but the balance was swinging more to the blues and greens than I wanted that way, so I've added the wine-colored wool to the bin.

Crazy quilts are the Marie-Antoinette-playing-shepherdess of quilting in any case. But I love them. They speak to me in a way that patchwork never has. There was a real antique crazy quilt hanging in the fiber-arts barn at summer camp, where I learned to spin and weave, and I never got tired of looking at it.

I'm glad I've started.