Crazy Quilts

by Steffani McChesney

Crazy quilts have been around a lot longer than the exuberant, richly embellished Victorian examples we think of today. As with all forms of quilting, the first crazy quilts were born of necessity. During the Colonial Era quilts were sewed out of any piece of usable fabric available regardless of size or color. All cloth had to be imported at great cost from England. None was manufactured locally in the early years. Any cloth was fair game, usually parts of old clothing and blankets. The worn parts were cut out leaving small, non-uniform pieces of fabric that were sewn back together to form a large enough piece of cloth to be used as a bedcover. This first version of the crazy quilt was mentioned in letters and journals written at the time but none have survived.

The crazy quilt, as we know it, became popular after the Civil War, reaching its peak of popularity in the 1880s. The well-to-do ladies of the Victorian Era sewed bits of rich silks and velvets together embellished with embroidery, ribbon, and even paint to create coverlets whose only function was to look beautiful, or, maybe, cover a piano.

An article in the September 1882 Harper’s Bazaar compared the technique of making crazy quilts with the pieced quilts of more plebian mien; “In the old calico quilts the design was very stiff, and the colors rarely chosen with any eye to effect. Now we are very daring; we go boldly on without any apparent design at all and produce in the end a result which will in some cases challenge comparison with any richly stained glass.” Hmm, aren’t we daring?

The form remained popular until around the end of World War I when quilting, along with other forms of handcrafts, became less popular. Manufactured goods became all the rage. Nobody wanted anything “homemade.”

Fortunately, we have seen the error of our ways. Quilting, including crazy quilting, is more popular than ever. With all the beautiful fabrics, hand-dyed silk ribbons, wonderful buttons, beads and laces available today, you would be crazy not to try a crazy quilt.