Antique Doilies and Crazy Quilting...

Here are two more doilies that I found at the same shop in St. Regis, Montana this summer...they were too pretty not to bring home with me.  I am developing quite a collection.  At least tatting doesn't take up much space...I'm afraid that it is very easy to want to bring home any that I find!  I enjoy the doilies and things for themselves, but I also like to have examples of different types of tatting styles that I can touch and look at, as it helps me to learn.  These two are lovely...

The smaller doily is in the same pattern as the larger, just completed only to the 1st row that uses chains.

The netted lace effect of the bare thread and small rings is really lovely.  I have read in Elgiva Nicholls Tatting Technique and History and in a couple of other places about this type of tatting, it is referred to as Mignonette.  

Mignonette is achieved by long thread spaces being left between each ring, subsequent rows rings are then attached to the thread spaces as one would attach to a picot. The result is very lovely, though I do think this would likey be tedious to tat as one would need to be accurate and careful with the size of the thread spaces to achieve a uniform look.

There...I have provided you some tatting eye candy!  I know many of you are primarily interested in tatting, but some of you also embroider and quilt as well and will be interested in the rest of this. 

So, now I will draw your attention to what rests behind those lovely doilies...my crazy quilt square!  This was what I spent my precious crafting time on today.  This is a 12.5" crazy quilt square of velvets in a variety of colors.

I signed up to take part in the CQJP 2012 (Crazy Quilt Journal Project)...and it has taken me quite a while to decide what I wanted to do for that.  I finally settled on blocks like the one I put together today...I just need to put together at least 11 more as I will be completing at least 1 per month this year as part of the CQJP challenge.

Now...Crazy Quilting is a new to me thing.  I have never done this before.  However, it is something I have been fascinated with for years.  The impetus for these particular blocks is my having been given an entire, very large, box of velvets in all manner of colors that my Grandmother had saved for years.  It is my thought that she had planned to make a crazy quilt with them someday. 

I remember reading somewhere that velvets were a much desired fabric for creating crazy quilts during the victorian era.  Being fancy and formal enough for the parlor, these quilts were often displayed there.  They were saved from dresses, and remnants from furniture coverings and curtains and whatever else might have desirable fabrics.  Grandma's assortment has pieces that are obviously part of garments that were taken apart and scraps from other projects...so it seems right to me to use them in this way.

I intend either 12 or 16 blocks, depending on how this goes for me.  In the above photo, you can see also a textured fabric in a cafe au late color that will be a part of the borders.  Below, you can see a cream/ivory fabric that is also textured and has some sheen to it which will make up the rest of the borders.  As you can see, I am not going an all cotton route at all here...

These are my choices for the border around the crazy quilt squares.  Below...you can see something of my proposed design...if I can manage 16 crazy quilt squares, this will become a 110" square bed size (queen/king) quilt that will be displayed in my guest room. 

Due to that intent, and my newness to the art of crazy quilting, my plan is to do primarily seam treatments along with a few embroidered motifs, attached tatted motifs, and tatted lace edging bits...no beads nor buttons nor complicated couched laces and wire edged 3-D flowers and other such amazing things that I have had the pleasure to view on the blogs of other's.

Tomorrow...well I hope I can cut and attach some border pieces so that I can get this in my big hoop and start playing with the embroidery!  I am very excited to have a start...I've also signed up to do TAST (Take a Stitch Tuesday) on PinTangle and I'm behind a week there already as I couldn't decide what I wanted as a format there either.  I think stitching on my CQ blocks will be just the right thing for both challeges and an excellent place to try different things with the new stitches to be learned through TAST.

I used to love embroidery and do quite a bit of it. But, I got bored with it as I always did the same stitches...lazy daisy, french knots, spit stitch, satin, etc. I think that CQJP and TAST are going to be a wonderful opportunity to expand my stitching repertory and try something new that I've always been interested in. As well as creating what, I hope, will be a lovely quilt that will honor my Grandmother's love of fabric, tatting, and the process of creating something of beauty.