
The crazy quilt pictured above was a cooperative effort by members of the
Quiltropolis online crazy quilting list. It was begun in 2007 and completed
in June 2008. It was the third quilt in a series made specifically for
display at the LeDuc House Museum in Hastings, MN.

The LeDuc House was built in 1862-1865 for William and Mary LeDuc and
their children. William LeDuc served as Quartermaster during the Civil War,
and later as the first Commissioner of Agriculture (later this position
became the Secretary of Agriculture).
The crazy quilt above is embellished only with embroidery because two of
the LeDuc daughters, Alice and Florence, were noted embroiderers. They
started a crazy quilt but only completed about a dozen blocks. They stopped
sewing on the blocks because they began their own custom design embroidery
business, an unusual endeavor for gently bred women of the time. Their
business was successful for many years, enabling them to employ a travelling
saleswoman to show samples and take orders in the five state area. Their
designs were also featured in the October 1903 issue of House Beautiful
magazine.
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Alice Sumner LeDuc, circa 1894.
Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.
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Florence Gray LeDuc, 1885.
A.A. Scott Photography Studio, Hastings, MN.
Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society. |
When the LeDuc daughters were making their crazy quilt blocks they
recycled fabric from clothing of family members, mostly fancy fabrics. They
did embroidery on the seam lines with a few embroidered motifs inside the
patches. They made detailed notes on the foundation where the fabrics came
from.
When I was organizing this cooperative quilt I consciously tried to
conform to the design decisions the LeDuc daughters made for their crazy
quilt blocks. I did compromise on some of the construction to ensure a quilt
that could be on display for many years. I planned to sew all the blocks out
of silk fabrics then send them out to volunteer embroiderers.
I was worried I would not get many volunteers due to the limitations I
had put on embellishing the blocks. Although the LeDuc family lived in a
large “mansion” for the times, they were cash-poor and the daughters would
not have had the funds for fancy ribbon embellishments, laces, etc. They
would have had ample access to embroidery floss of the time.
When I solicited volunteers I had to tell them no beading, no laces, no
charms; embroider only on the seam lines. And the embroidery floss would
have to be cotton, silk or wool, solid colors only (no fancy metallics or
gorgeous hand dyed variegated.) I was hoping for maybe a half dozen
volunteers.
Imagine how happy I was when twenty-eight women volunteered from the list! It made
the project move from a wishful dream to a possibility. So I set to work
sewing the blocks.
A few practical pointers if you ever want to organize a cooperative crazy
quilt project:
- Buy at least TWICE as much fabric as you think you will need. I had
to go back to the silk warehouse twice, and it is an hour and half drive
from my home.
- Add at least ONE MONTH to every step of the project (give yourself
an extra month to organize, give the volunteers an extra month before
you need the blocks back and give yourself an extra month to put all the
blocks together).
- Send out twenty-five percent more blocks than you really need. Let’s be realistic
here: if you have close to thirty women working on a project for six
months, there are going to be babies born, graduations, weddings, moving
households, illnesses, etc. Even with the best of intentions some of
your volunteers will not be able to complete the project, and you
probably will not get the supplies or blocks back (because they are ill
or moving or whatever). Take this into account in your planning.
- OVERSIZE your blocks. You don’t know how much they will shrink up in
the embellishing process, and you will have to cut all your blocks to
match the smallest sized block (which could drastically affect the
finished size).
- Have a back up plan. In this case, if twenty-five blocks came back, the quilt
setting would be five rows of five blocks. If fewer blocks came back, I
could go to four blocks in five rows (which is how the final quilt came
out), or even smaller; four rows of four blocks.
I knew I wanted to include fan blocks in the corners of the quilt. I
wanted each fan block to be unique and embroidered by a different person. I
also knew that these blocks would take more time to embroider because of the
long seam lines in the fans. So even though I got many more volunteers than I
needed to embroider the fan blocks (and several people requested more than
one fan block), I made an executive decision that only four people would
receive one fan block each to embroider. I did not make any extra fan
blocks. I especially encouraged the fan embroiderers to get these blocks
back to me promptly. Kerri Murphy, Maureen Flaherty, Sandra Pearce and Freda
Butler all graciously put up with this nagging.
I have included photos of the four corner fan blocks at the end of this
article. Patterns and instructions for the four fan blocks are also
included. About half of the fabrics used in the fan blocks were silk tie
remnants.
So the blocks were sewn and sent out to the volunteers; and I settled down
to wait. If I were smarter, I would have been shopping for the sashing and backing fabric (this became a last minute problem
when I ran out of
sashing fabric and could not find a suitable fabric for the backing).
I had no idea how many blocks would actually come back and what quality
they would be. I sent out a few reminder emails and tried to remain hopeful.
The blocks started trickling in, and each one was wonderful. They were so
lovely that after about ten blocks had been returned thoughts started
entering my head such as, “Cindy, what were you thinking? Look at these
gorgeous blocks! And you promised to sew them all up and GIVE IT AWAY!”
Alas, these evil thoughts continued in my head until the day I hung the
completed quilt in the LeDuc House. I admit it: I had lust in my heart.
Plans for placement of each block continuously evolved as new
blocks arrived. When I got twenty blocks back, I started to get serious about
placement. I received a total of twenty-two blocks, so there were two leftover blocks.
I constructed this quilt specifically to be hung, so I did some extra
steps to strengthen it. A cotton batting was inserted, and a heavier weight
cotton upholstery fabric was used as the backing fabric.
I searched for several weeks for the backing fabric; I wanted it to be as
beautiful as the front. I was not going to stint on the backing because the
volunteers had obviously labored long on their embroidery, and made such
stunning blocks. The backing of your quilt does get seen, and I encourage you
to finish your crazy quilts as finely as you embroider them.
The fabric I finally chose for the backing is a large scale, floral print
upholstery cotton. The background is a black tone-on-tone stripe, with large
rose colored urns holding sprays of flowers and bluebirds flying between the
urns. The white, pink, rose and maroon sprays of flowers gave me the idea to
bind the edge of the crazy quilt in maroon twisted cording.
Between the blocks, and around the outer edge of the quilt top, narrow
black silk sashing was used. The blocks were sewn into vertical rows, and then a
continuous strip of sashing (running from the top of the quilt to the
bottom) was inserted between the vertical rows. This construction sequence
is important because it allowed me to use machine stitching to vertically
support and strengthen the quilt.
I sewed all the vertical rows of blocks together using these long
vertical strips between the rows. I then smoothed the quilt top onto the
batting/backing. Next, I flipped the right side of the quilt over to lay on
top of the left side of the quilt, exposing the long middle vertical seam. I
carefully smoothed the seam allowance flat so the stitched seam was easily
visible. I pinned through all the layers the length of this seam, and then machine
stitched over the previous stitching. Do this flipping, smoothing, pinning
stitching on all the vertical seams across the width of the quilt, and you
will have stitched in good vertical support.
Lastly, I added sashing strips around the outer edge of the quilt, sewing
through all the layers and flipping the sashing strip open/flat. The end
result is a quilt with machine stitched channels going through all the
layers of the quilt with the edges of the quilt stitched also. These channels
will show on the back of the quilt but not on the front of the quilt. I also
did invisible machine stitching in each block to further stabilize the
quilt.
After the top was stabilized, I trimmed the batting to match
the quilt top and added twisted cording to the edge. How to do a twisted
cording edging using a facing will be described in a later issue of
CQMagOnline. A detailed full page label crediting all the embroidery
volunteers was also sewn onto the quilt back.
Let’s take a look at the four corner fan blocks.
 
Constructed by: Maureen Flaherty (left), Kerri Murphy (right)
 
Constructed by: Freda Butler (left), Sandra Pearce (right)
I wanted four individual fans, but I did want some continuity between them,
so each fan consists of six fan blades. Each fan is set 1" away from
the corner of the block; this is to avoid accumulated seam allowances in the
corners of the quilt, making it easier to apply whatever finish you want to
the quilt edge (ruffles, binding, cording, etc.). I also set the wider ends
of the fan blades back from the curved seam. This will make it easier to sew
the curved seam (which is actually a pressed under edge). You will notice
ALL the embroiderers took the opportunity to place some special embroidery
along the space by the curved seam.
By choosing six fan blades in each fan it is fairly easy to draft these
patterns.
Each fan needs to make a ninety degree angle; ninety degrees divided by
six
equals fifteen degrees in each blade. The patterns for these fan blades are at
the very end of this article. Each pattern includes a 1/4" seam
allowance. I sized them to make an approximately 7” fan set into a 9”
background quarter circle, but by shrinking or enlarging them using a copier, you
can customize this for your own use.
I “cleaned up” the bottom corner of each fan block either by cutting a
diagonal clean edge and piecing in a triangle, or pressing under the lower
edge and appliquéing to a quarter circle. I did not want any seam lines to go
deep into the corner of the block because I did not, at that time, know what
kind of edge I would put on the finished quilt. I did not want a lot of bulk
at the corners of the quilt. Again, the four embroiderers surprised me by
embroidering a motif in this open corner area.
How were the individual fans sewn together? The Flaherty fan and the
Pearce fan blades were sewn together; raw edges pressed under, and then they
were appliquéd onto large quarter circles of black silk.
The Butler fan and the Murphy fan were paper pieced to include a large
piece of black silk on the ends of the fan blades. This extra fabric
extended to the curved seam. A 2” wide strip of black silk was sewn to the
two outer edges of the fans, and then a diagonal cut was made across the bottom
of the blades, and a silk triangle was pieced in. I’m hoping you can see this
in the close up photos of these blocks.
Let’s take a closer look at Sandra Pearce’s block.

Look at that lovely embroidered orange lace along the top of the fan! And
the yellow flower embroidered in the corner really highlights the block.
To make this fan block you will need to cut six of the pattern given and
sew them together in an arc. I then drew the
finished shape of the fan on lightweight cardboard, and basted the sewn pieces onto the cardboard. A
good pressing will give you a nice finished edge all around. Pull out the
basting stitches to remove the cardboard, and appliqué your curved arc onto a
large quarter circle of fabric.
All of the fans have crazy piecing filling out the rest of the area to
make a square block. The fan wedges are sewn down onto the black silk, so
they do not need any further foundation. But I needed a foundation shaped to
curve over the raw edges of the fans and square up the block.
To do this I used lightweight tagboard and drew a square the desired
finished size of my corner blocks. Using a compass draw a quarter circle in
one corner that will represent the fan applied to its background quarter
circle (I used a 9” quarter circle). Cut this quarter circle out of the
tagboard and you are left with an odd shape which you need to crazy piece to
fill out the rest of the square block. BUT before you trace this odd shape
onto your foundation fabric, add 2” on all the straight edges and ½” on the
curved edge.
After you have crazy pieced on the foundation, lay the cardboard down on
the back of the foundation and trace just the curved edge. Use your machine
to straight stitch on the traced line. This line of stitching should help
you easily turn under the curved edge; you may need to do a little clipping.
This piece is now laid over the fan’s raw edge and appliquéd down to get a
square block.
Kerri Murphy’s block (below) was supposed to be slightly Art Deco in design.
She has placed tiny angled spider webs along the top of the fan blades and
continued the embroidery into the blank corner. Those little firecracker
bursts along the inner corner of the curved edge really pack a punch.
To sew this fan you need to foundation piece it using the patterns
provided. Note: on the wider center piece you need to sew two strips together
and align the sewn seam on the center line of the pattern, and then sew in one
piece of background fabric above. Finally, you need to trim the fabric edges
to match the foundation guidelines before you sew on the side pieces.

Maureen Flaherty’s block (below) is made from segments that are sewn so
that the pointy edge of the blades folds in on itself and is a totally
finished edge. The blades are then sewn together to get the completed fan,
and the straight sides and curved bottom edge are pressed under. Lastly this
fan is applied to the large background quarter circle.

How do you get that finished pointy edge? Cut out the shape from the
pattern, and fold it right sides together along the length of the piece. Sew
across the wider edge, lockstitch the beginning and end of this seam. Turn
the fabric right sides out and you will magically get a pointed end. Fold
the piece in half again lengthwise and finger press a crease about 2” from
the point. Reach a finger inside the pointy end and push the seam allowance
one way or the other while lining up the sewn seam with your crease; press
well. This will make your point evenly centered.
When you put two blades rights sides together to sew them it is tempting
to align the points, but actually you need to align the lower outer sides
(what will become the bottom V between the points) so when they are sewn
together you get a crisp V. Press these seam lines open.
This fan block is easy to make out of even the most slippery fabric.
Maureen stitched a folk art heart in corner of the fan, flowers between the
pointed ends of the wedges and stitches along the curved edge.

Freda Butler’s fan block (above) is also foundation pieced. I used three
silk tie remnants and three plain silks chosen to match the colors in the
ties. Background fabric (black silk) is pieced above and below the colored
silks so the colored pieces “float”. I especially liked the embroidery
following the shape of the fan blades and the wide, intricate embroidery
along the curved edge. The small embroidered fan in the corner mimics the
larger fan.
 


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