Twelve Quilts of Christmas – #2

 

To know me is to know my deep love for the work of Indiana quilter Susan Noakes McCord. Her work leaves me nothing short of breathless and in awe!

 

The museum writes about this quilt on its website, saying: “This quilt is a variation of a “crazy” quilt design called fans. Most quilters placed a fan in just one corner of a block. Susan McCord sewed fans of varying sizes in each corner. Then she joined the blocks together to form “wheels” that dazzle with a sense of motion and energy — a stunning example of this Indiana farmwife’s extraordinary design sense.” 

 

McCord’s Fan Variation Quilt Is utterly captivating. Made of wool suitings and dress flannels, it was never quilted; the foundations of the blocks visible when the quilt top is turned over.  

 

To be honest I don’t have a fondness for crazy quilts.  In fact, I can happily leave them all and not give them any time … with the exception, the sole exception, of this one. 

 

It’s the small bits and dashes of cream coloured fabrics that, with the help of all the circles and circle segments have your eye dancing around the quilt.   And look at all the tiny pieces in the far, left column of blocks … swoon!  Do you see the one outline piece of a fan that looks more like an elbow? Be sure to follow the link in the photo caption and take a look at the close up of the quilt, to really understand the colours in this quilt.  Those toffee and caramel and brown fabrics!  That teal!  Those moments of olive green!  And that red … it just pops!

 

Thank you Susan Noakes McCord!