Montano - The crazy quilt handbook: 12 updated step-by-step projects: illustrated stitch guide, including silk ribbon stitches

Publisher: Amy Marson

Creative Director: Gailen Runge

Art Director: Kristy Zacharias

Editors: Lynn Koolish and Joanna Burgarino

Technical Editors: Helen Frost and Nan Powell

Cover Designer: April Mostek

Book Designer: Rose Wright

Production Coordinator: Zinnia Heinzmann

Production Editor: Alice Mace Nakanishi

Illustrators: Tim Manibusan and Judith Baker Montano

Photography by Judith Baker Montano, unless otherwise noted

Dedication

To my special familya United Nations under one roof. You make my life complete.

Acknowledgments

Ornamentations, by Judith Baker Montano, 40 46, private collection

This book is the result of years of study and work with the support of many people in my private and public life.

Heartfelt thanks go out to my wonderful students. I owe them a great deal for my amazing career. I will always be grateful to them.

Lots of gratitude and thank-yous to my husband, Ernest Shealy, who is always there for me with encouragement and support. Living with an artist is not for the faint of heart!

I owe so much to the late Imelda DeGraw, textile curator of the Denver Art Museum, where I worked as her assistant. The textile department sponsored my first museum show in 1988. While I was writing the original version of The Crazy Quilt Handbook, she granted me access to the museums research and crazy quilt collection.

A loving thank-you goes to my children: Jason Montano, Madeleine Montano Morack, Tara Ohta, Dana Whitfield, and Kristen Szilagyi, and their wonderful spouses, Nicole Boucher Montano, Tony Morack, Yoichi Ohta, Eric Whitfield, and Jim Szilagyi. Together they have given me five amazing grandchildrenNicole, Rie, Gen, Kelse, and Paloma. I am a lucky woman.

Thank you to my supportive friends and relatives: Karen and Jim Baker, Valerie Bothell, Jack and Ann Brockette, Phyl and Neil Drew, Kaffe Fassett, Brian Haggart, Candice Kling, Kathy Koch, Dulany Lingo, Brandon Mobley, Christine Nyberg, Karen Osatchuk, Di Pettigrew, Cindy and Alvaro Pisoni, Robin Richards, Anne and Peter Riseborough, Babs and Brent Seawell, Justin Shultz and Ricky Tims, Faye and Tom Walker.

A special thank-you to my wonderful editor, Lynn Koolish. She is always there for me with a calm and reassuring manner.

Thank you to my dear designer, Rose Wright. Kudos to my technical editor and longtime friend, Helen Frost, and to the C&T team.

Preface

The Crazy Quilt Handbook Revision

T wenty-eight years ago I wrote The Crazy Quilt Handbook, hoping it would last for a year, and it was in print for fifteen years! Next came The Crazy Quilt Handbook, Revised 2nd Edition, in print for thirteen years. Much has changed for me over the years, but crazy quilting persists as a favorite art form. I have progressed as a teacher, discovered new techniques, and explored ideas for the beginning crazy quilter. So with more than 230,000 books sold, it is time to present the third updated edition!

This new edition features new patterns and up-to-date photographic how-tos and information. It presents concise text and illustrations without losing its basic form. I hope you enjoy this third edition of The Crazy Quilt Handbook as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Crazy Quilt Definitions

Crazy quilting is the method of sewing varied shapes of fancy fabrics to a whole cloth foundation.

The fabrics form a collaged asymmetrical design. After the foundation is covered, each seam is decorated with embellishments and embroidered stitch combinations. Unlike a traditional quilt, a crazy quilt has no batting and is tacked to a whole cloth backing.

Judith Baker Montano, 1986, 2001, and 2014

A patchwork quilt without ordered design

Websters Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary

A patchwork quilt of a type traditionally made in North America, with patches of randomly varying sizes, shapes, colors, and fabrics; a disorganized collection of things: colonial America was a crazy quilt of laws.

Oxford Dictionary

Recollections

C razy quilting is a constant love of mine, the answer to my many interests. I am drawn to the beautiful, outrageous crazy quilts that remind me of mysterious, glittering jewels, the gypsy cousins peeking out from a patchwork of traditional sister quilts. They are the wild, black-sheep children, tolerated by conservative relatives; perhaps thats why I relate to them. Not only beautiful, the crazy quilt combines many skillsembroidery, sewing, appliqu, embellishing, beading, painting, and color design.

When living in England during the early 1970s, I observed Victorian crazy quilts at the Victoria and Albert Museum. They sparked my interest, but my research turned up very little information. I continued on with traditional quilting but never lost the desire to make a crazy quilt. I was fascinated with these quilts.

With crazy quilting, I basically had to teach myself, and I came up with a machine method of piecing that is now known as the Montano Centerpiece Method. Ive kept my first attempt as a lesson in humilitya vest made from old ties with cotton floss for embroidery (shown below). My first wallhanging was my pride and joy, and I keep these pieces to see the progress I have made over the years.

Yesterday, by Judith Baker Montano, 30 40

My first crazy quilt wallhanging

Through trial and error, I perfected the Montano Centerpiece Method and mastered the basic Victorian stitches. A few years later Karey Bresenhan (founder of Quilts, Inc.) hired me to teach at her shop. Only three students signed up, and two were my friends! Today my classes are filled and have waiting lists, interest is worldwide, and crazy quilting is accepted as a true art form.

My first crazy quilt project

Trailblazers

During the early years while I worked in my sewing room, three trailblazers helped bring crazy quilting back to public attention. They are Dixie Haywood, who specialized in machine crazy quilting and published Crazy Quilting with a Difference (1981, Scissortail Publications); Dorothy Bond, who printed the delightful stitch book Crazy Quilt Stitches (1981, Dorothy Bond); and Penny McMorris, author of Crazy Quilts (1984, Plume), a historical research book.

Over the last 28 years, Ive done my best to carry the crazy quilt banner. Today there are crazy quilters all over the world, an international crazy quilt society, and countless crazy quilt groups. Some of my students are now writing books on crazy quilting, and that makes me proud.

Australian Memories, by Judith Baker Montano, 28 39

Links with the Past

I believe that our background and upbringing dictate our special interests. The nature of my background has a lot to do with my love for crazy quilting.

I was raised on the historical Bar U Ranch in Alberta, Canada. My mother excelled at needlework, crafts, and music. She tried to teach us needlework, but I did not appreciate her efforts and would hide in the horse barn. I was her worst student.