This quilt speaks to the theme of Comfort on several levels. I spent a good deal of time reflecting on what I find comforting. One of the first things that comes to mind is keeping my hands busy. Quilting has been my method of calming myself for 20 years. It also occurred to me that quilts offer comfort to others and the touch of a loved one is a major comforter that reminds us that we are not facing life alone. I never throw away my scraps and rummaging through them is a comforting trip through many memories.
These thoughts swirled around during the last 2 months. I attended a guild lecture by Alice Kolb in which she described the meaning behind crazy quilts. I found her out of print book on the subject and decided to make a crazy quilt using her techniques rather than the stitch and flip method that I've used previously (I'm still trying to explore different ways to create a quilt) in this case I brought order to a little bit of my scrap and life chaos. Digging through my scraps I found a little log cabin piece leftover from one of my early quilts, a heart log cabin quilt I created for my daughter. She dragged it all over and I remember being upset when I actually had to repair it. After my daughter's death I kept that quilt near and dear to me. The quilt also has scraps from a family portrait quilt that I made for my dad and also pieces from one of the more recent things that I made ( an Eiffel Tower zip travel bag). Two of the class that I took at IQF this year involved quilting a quilt and then painting in the quilted area so that technique to be included too. (The classes were with Lisa Walton and Anna Buzzalino ). Since crazy quilts often carry embroidered messages, I added one from a calendar my cousin gave me after my daughter's death- "she who laughs lasts", a message that I have taken to heart whenever I find my stress meter starting to overload. I had my husband take a snapshot of my hands and I traced them in my IPad during an IQF presentation about IPad apps taught by Susie Monday
