Twelve Quilts of Christmas – #5

This is not the first Susan McCord Crazy Quilt that I have featured during the Twelve Quilts of Christmas.  There was this fabulous one in 2022.

I was and still am very much captivated by McCord’s Fan Variation Quilt that I shared last year. At the time I wrote that to be honest other than her Fan Variation Quilt, I didn’t have a fondness for crazy quilts and that in fact, I could happily leave them all and not give them any time.  However, as I have been looking at McCord’s other Crazy Quilts, I can report that I am softening on this a bit.  I don’t know that one has made it to my bucket list, but today’s quilt has opened my eyes to how intriguing one can be when executed with her skill and artistic sensibilities.

This quilt is not over the top with embroidered details as is typical of crazy quilts of the era. McCord restricted the embroidery to the edges of the individual pieces and the blocks using a herringbone pattern and I like the subtlety of that detail.

I also like the very obvious block layout in this quilt, compared to other crazy quilts, and how it gives a sense of more defined edges.  This element creates a wonderful rhythm to what can otherwise be the chaos I typically sense with looking at other crazy quilts.  I am intrigued by her design decisions.  She had enough of the string type/vertically/linearly composed blocks to create a border on the right, like the one on the left, but she chose not to.  She visually anchored the top and the bottom of the quilt with the large piecing used in the four centre blocks on those rows. Look and you will see gentle curves thrown in here and there in some blocks; this softens the whole composition and is a delightful juxtaposition to the blocks that are more linear in design.

McCord’s colour palette intrigues me as well. She did not choose the typical somber colours of the era.  Instead she chose to use a significant amount of white and add moments of light blue and vibrant royal blue throughout the quilt.  This choice by McCord, enhanced by the moments of deep black and eggplant, makes this quilt glow and gives a sense of lightness to the composition.  And that one piece of rich red on that deep black (third row from the left, third column from the left) … that wee moment of intensity … it fits right in. Unlike those somber affairs that crazy quilts from this period typically are, there’s an exuberance and joy within this quilt … and I find that very enticing. 

What do you think about Crazy Quilts?  Is one on your bucket list of quilts to make?

Some other facts about this quilt:

Condition: very good/almost new

Fabric: cotton, wool and silk flannel and velvet and some machine embroidered dress trim

Construction: Hand pieced, foundation pieced

Embroidery: wool thread and other embroidery.

Batting: no batting

Quilting: no quilting

Binding: Edges turned under and finished with blanket stitch