Marguerita Mcmanus - Crazy Shortcut Quilts

We love a great shortcut when traveling, cooking and quilting, since it usually takes us on a path less traveled and often saves us time. Crazy Shortcut Quilts has an amazing combination of short steps and has eliminated tasks in quilt making, allowing you to finish your quilt in record time, even if you've never quilted before!

Old fashioned quilters used small scraps of leftover or recycled fabrics, then hand or machine sewed the pieces together, using old blankets as filling, hand quilting needlework or yarn ties to secure the layers. Today's quilters have available fabrics of the finest quality, specialized battings and computerized sewing machines to make their quilts. Still it's a struggle to complete a quilt because of the traditional process of piecing the whole top and layering it with bed-sized batting and an oversized backing before beginning the quilting the process of joining the three layers.

Traditional crazy quilts involve an additional step because once the pieces of fabrics are joined, decorative stitching is added. It makes an elegant and always unique quilt, but often takes months if not years to make.

We have a new way of making these lovely, unique and sophisticated quilts, in much less time than the traditional method! Making a Crazy Shortcut Quilt is exciting for experienced quilters, non-quilters and new quilters because there is virtually no precise measuring or cutting!

Your sewing machine and it's decorative stitches do all of the quilting in small, manageable sections no quilting skills needed, no struggling to quilt a huge quilt in a sewing machine, no need to hire a professional quilter!

We help you choose fabrics that coordinate with your home dcor or add a decorative spice to existing room dcor, making every project truly a designer crazy quilt.

If you know nothing at all about quilt making relax! Sarah's been teaching the technique for years to absolute beginners, who often finish their projects in a single weekend! Now that's really taking a shortcut to a crazy quilt!

Our book assumes that you have never made a quilt before, and therefore we begin with basic how-to chapters that fully explain each part of the process. While we encourage everyone to read through all of the chapters, an experienced quilt maker who already has a color scheme in mind for her fabrics may choose to skip the beginning chapters and go right to The Shortcuts.

With each design we have given detailed information for fabric requirements and cutting, however, the designs are interchangeable! If you see a design you like but want to make a different size quilt than the size offered for that design, review all the chapters for the size quilt you want and purchase the fabrics as stated for that size quilt but make the cuts according to the plan we give you for your chosen design.

We've divided the projects into sections based on some of our favorite cuts, and added a little lagniappe with accessorizing home dcor projects that coordinate with your quilts.