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Crazy May

For the May edition of my calendar tote project I decided to use a vintage embroidered crazy quilt patch I've been saving for a while. I'd like to do a theme of vintage embroidery with a black tote. Ordinary I avoid black, as it tends to be depressing, but this time it feels right.

I did test the patch against a cream colored cutter quilt piece and while it does bring out the bird a little better I prefer how it looks with the black.

I also got out my basket of vintage crazy quilt pieces to hunt through and see if there are some smaller bits of embroidery work I can incorporate.

All of these came to me as cutter pieces, which kind of breaks my heart, but crazy quilts are well known to disintegrate, especially because of the types of dyes and the thin silks used during this era, so I feel lucky to have them anyway.

The granny square I crocheted in Gumdrop silk yarn last month doesn't quite work with my idea. Neither do these blocks.

These definitely work. :)

Now that I've chosen my materials, I just need to finalize the design and I can get started. Stay tuned to see how I do.

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