I love making Crazy Quilt blocks! Being crazy isn’t a requirement, as I have always told my Crazy Quilt students, but it helps! The block you see above has a very coordinated look because I was working from a packet of designer fat quarters, a gift from Marcus Brothers for providing a quilting “tip” a few years ago. I love these smokey-tone, antique-look fabrics. They are 100% cotton, unlike the original Crazy Quilts that were primarily silks and fancy fabrics.
I started out with the fabric, a handful of embellishments (lace, beads, etc.), some embroidery floss and other fibers, and the memory of a stanza of a poem in Spanish that I have always loved, written by Jose Marti (with an accent on the “e” and on the “i,” characters which this blog doesn’t support.
Cultivo una rosa blanca, en junio como en enero
Para el amigo sincero que me da su mano franca. (For Spanish students, note that even though the word “mano” ends in “o,” it is a feminine noun (la mano).
These lines mean:
I cultivate a white rose, in June as in January
For the sincere friend who gives me his honest hand.
I made this block some time ago and have not done anything else with it. Some things do not have to be finished, or at least, not right away. With its bright colored borders, the block seems to stand on its own. Like the rest of my unfinished projects, I come across it, now and then, and feel no urgency to complete it. For quilters and needleworkers, the most exciting projects are the ones still swimming around in our minds. I have plenty of projects I would like to design, or start. There is always “another day.”
Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications
