Crazy Quilt Block 81 in the I Dropped the Button Box Quilt

Crazy Quilt block 81 on the I Dropped the Button Box Crazy Quilt has a marine theme to it,  so there is an eye candy warning ahead.

As usual if you click the thumbnail of the quilt, or the thumbnail of quilt block, in each case you can see a larger version.

Crazy quilt block 81 sits on the far left hand side of the quilt second row up from the bottom. As you can see unlike other blocks in the series that have distinct seam embellishments, you do not see each seam covered with a line of stitches. Crazy Quilt block 81 has been treated like a back layer to a picture. The patch worked fabric is the foundation for the  foreground of the image being the embroidery. On this block

Fabric content on Crazy Quilt block 81 :

• Piece 1: Synthetic
• Piece 2: Silk devore burnout over a dark cotton foundation fabric
• Piece 3: Synthetic
• Piece 4: A flocked Synthetic after five fabric
• Piece 5: Cotton
• Piece 6: Silk

Item Count on Crazy Quilt block 81:

When I made this quilt the challenge was to use 2001 unique pieces of fabric, lace, braids, charms, buttons or ribbons as it is a Y2K quilt. The on going item count list below represents the items documented to date in this series of articles.

• Fabric: 6
• Lace, braid and ribbon:2
• Buttons and charms: 8
• Total items on this block: 16
• Total tally of items on the quilt so far: 1536

Detail 533

The block has a U shaped formation of feather stitches and up and down feather stitch in hand dyed cotton, hand dyed silk and metalic threads. These are worked over couched novelty yarns such as the tubular knitting yarn secured by the seahorse charm,  in the detail below. French knots and seed beads are interspersed with larger beads, charms and some bugle beads.

Detail 534

The most noticeable detail on this block is the ‘jelly fish’ that sits on a band of hand dyed lace. It is made of a shiny plastic button. For tendrils I used a synthetic metallic yarn that I teased out a little before couching it to the block.  The fish charms are hand made glass beads that I found at a craft fair.

Free Crazy quilt block patterns
As I write this series I am diagraming out each block on the I dropped the button box crazy quilt and giving away the block patterns. The  links to these pattern pages are listed on the CQ details FAQ page

Have you enjoyed this series? If so you may be interested in  a tutorial I have written on how to work decorative crazy quilt seams. The tutorial is a comprehensive tutorial that I converted to a pdf file (a link to the download is in the article) When I converted it I realised how comprehensive it was. At 19 pages of information it is a mini ebook and resource worth investigating!

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Have you seen my book?

My book The Visual Guide to Crazy Quilting Design: Simple Stitches, Stunning Results  shares practical methods about how to design and make a crazy quilt. I teach how to balance colour, texture and pattern, in order direct the viewers eye. I show you how to build decorative seam treatments in interesting and creative ways using a handful of stitches. My book is profusely illustrated as my aim is to be both practical and inspiring.