No Rules- Crazy Quilting!!

Over the past year or so I have been developing a class called Let's Go Crazy (er) - The Rules of NO RULES Crazy Quilting!!  I have asked the amazingly talented and generous quilt/textile artist Allison Aller, if I may use her fabulous book as a reference and she has given me the green light.  You can see and read about here fabulous book here!  If you have any interest in textile collage, this is a Must Have book!
This past week I taught my first sessions of this class at Artful Dimensions Gallery in Fredericksburg, VA.  We have a great roster of classes at the Gallery and we teach whenever it is convenient for the student, that is why you will not see times and dates on the schedule!!

My dear friend Leslie Brier and her wonderful mom came in to learn how to piece a Crazy Quilt Block and then how to embellish their newly created textile canvas.  We had a wonderful time and we could have worked through the day!!  This class has been designed to allow students to express their personal artistic style in their textile collage- crazy quilt art form.  We want to throw open all the doors and windows and allow all the rules about crazy quilting to flow out and make everyone comfortable with asking themselves those wonderful "What IF" questions that lead to personal works of exuberant textile collage!!

During our first session we covered the Flip and Stitch method for piecing a quilt block.  Then I shared a wonderful method for collaging fabric scraps on Steam a Seam 2 fusible web to create a very crazy collage, Such fun!!

(click on any image to enlarge)

Here are the first blocks that my students created! I enticed them to jump in with some wonderful focal images that had been printed on fabric.  Each lady was delighted with the selection of printed images- they were perfect for their respective personalities!!

After our first class, Leslie and her Mom left and with homework to practice piecing and to return with several blocks that they had created on their home! Here you see a very simple block that Paula created.  We worked on how to start the embellishing process and things to think about and now Paula is itching to get to the FUN part!!  ( Aller's Book does a fabulous job with inspiring ideas and directions for this stage of the CQ ( Crazy Quilt) process!!)

Paula went ahead and created several Christmas themed blocks  as her practice pieces!  For a gal who is not yet good friends with her sewing machine, she did a great job!! we worked on some parts that she was struggling with in her relationship with her machine and things seem to be getting Much better!! It is so nice to be able to ease the frustration of a seamstress so they can get past the anger stage when learning to use their machine!!!

Her you can see one of Leslie's amazing practice blocks.  Leslie and I have both found our local Goodwill shops to be a great resource for fabric finds.  The black lace swatches that you see in this block was salvaged from a dress that Leslie found at Goodwill by the Pound!!  ( Locally , we have an outlet where Goodwill takes their older donations and makes them available to the public for a "By the Pound' price!)I really love how Leslie has crafted this wonderful selection of black and white patterned fabrics!

Here is Leslie's block from our first session.  Leslie has started on her embellishment journey and has added this wonderful flower trim to bring some more color closer to the gorgeous lady in the center of the block.

 Here is another practice block by Leslie!! I love seeing how an individual artists personality is expressed in their work!  With the black and white block and this numbers block above you can see the "Steampunker" part of Leslie emerge!!  I can't wait to see how Leslie embellishes this amazing block.  we will have to wait till our next class and AI will be sure to share pictures with you here!!

For another peek at Leslie's artistic personality you see this third practice block above!!  I know just how Leslie thinks as I myself often go to opposite ends of my artistic expression meter to create very different pieces of artwork!!  This only serves to keep us interested and inspired and excited about all of the wonderful possibilities available to us!!

Check back soon to see the further adventures of Paula and Leslie as they continue to follow the No Rules approach to Crazy Quilting!!