Blogger's Quilt Festival: We The People Crazy Quilt

That's right!  It's Blogger's Quilt Festival Time!  If you're new to my site, welcome!  

One of my first introductions into the world of quilt bloggers was through one of Amy's link up festivals.  I'm adding 2 of my quilts to this fall's festival, which is going on now.  My art quilt entry is my recently completed "We the People Crazy Quilt.  It was created out of my frustration with the recent government shut down.  The whole process was very cathartic for me, and left me with a beautiful new quilt.

As usual, when I start a new project, I like to try out or learn a new technique.  I have been wanting to try reverse applique for a while now, so I used my red and blue scraps first to make a crazy quilt of the different states in the Union.  It's art, so I ad-libbed a bit.  Our politicians are very good at doing this.  Crazy quilts are made in exactly the same fashion, and it just seemed a perfect way to "portray" our country right now... a little bit crazy, and also a little bit (OK, maybe a lot) divided into "red" and "blue" states.  I'm a little bit crazy myself right now, so it just seemed perfect.  My opinion is that a little bit of crazy can be a good thing.  From this springs creativity, ingenuity, perseverance.  Going over that fine line, though, can be a very bad thing, and I think we're pretty much right there...

Of course our colors are red white and blue, so I found some almost white batik fabric in my stash.  I've learned that tightly woven batiks hold up better to the applique process.  I traced the outline of the United States that I had printed off, enlarged and also pieced together with paper, onto the batik fabric (did you follow that?).

I then pinned the batik on top of the crazy quilt top, both facing up, and free motion quilted just outside of the traced lines.

Now came the tedious but oh-so-fun step of cutting out along the line I drew, revealing the craziness underneath.

Then came the layering of batting and a back fabric, and the quilting.  I decided to quilt "pebbles" or people in the country part, all from a nice variegated purple thread, because we're all pretty much the same when it comes down to it.  To emphasize what this country is about, and maybe to even send out a little message of my own, I quilted the words "We the People" across the top, because this country is all about We the People, not we the politicians, or we the corporations.  Stippling and a scrappy binding finished it with the exception of one last detail.

I sewed on a button, and made a 2 sided fabric postcard sign that reads "open" on one side, and "closed" on the other.During the government shut down, it remained "closed".  I'm very happy, relieved and grateful that it is now open, and hope it stays that way for a very long time.

Be sure to click over to Amy's Creative Side's Blog to see all of the other wonderful quilts!