Crazy Seasons Mystery Quilt block 5!

Good morning!
It's time again for a new block on this fun adventure! I am loving seeing everyone's beautiful work on the Facebook group for this project! If you don't know about it.....go check it out! Twice a month, a designer releases a beautiful Free Crazy block for you to download and make, or you may order a nice kit from each designer, so you don't have to work so hard choosing fabrics and making decisions! At the end of this fun project there will be a finishing kit as well, from Rhonda McCray of Farmhouse Threads, who organized this wonderful idea! Thank you Rhonda!

Okay.....the moment you have been waiting for...here is my block!

You will find the free downloadable pattern on my website, as well as the kit, should you chose to purchase one. You may also order the printed pattern, if you don't want to bother with the downloading and printing! Here is the link to my website....there is a button to click at the top of the home page. https://woolenwillowdesigns.com/

A couple things I found very helpful in making my block...

I hate to trace templates for Crazy quilts...what if I don't do it exact?  I found these wonderful printer friendly freezer paper sheets that you can just copy the templates to with your printer!
https://woolenwillowdesigns.com/collections/supplies
It saved a ton of time, and there are 50 sheets in the pack, so you can use them for the next blocks as well.  Once I copied the patch templates onto the freezer paper sheets in my printer, I cut them out on the drawn lines, pressed each one onto the corresponding fabric, and cut out using my rotary cutter and ruler, leaving a 1/4" seam allowance past the edge of the ruler. I didn't include the seam allowance, because I know some of you may be doing another method where you will need a larger seam allowance, so you can decide! I chose to sew my blocks together by machine. Here is a picture of my fabrics cut with the freezer paper still on them...the nice thing with the package of copier freezer papers, is that the numbers of each patch will automatically be there, and the placement diagrams of the applique as well! In my picture, you won't see that, because I didn't have the  pattern written yet when I did my block.

All the instructions are in the pattern, but I wanted to just show you a few things. After your patch pieces are sewn together, I found it really helpful to stitch around the edge of the block as Shawn from Rusty crow did. Then I fused the whole block onto Shape Flex fusible interfacing. This really helped the block to not stretch or fray, and it was so light and easy to stitch through!  

You will either do your crazy stitches next, or you will do your wool applique. That is all up to you. I did my wool applique first, but it may have been easier to handle the fabric for the crazy stitching, had I waited on the applique. I have some photos for you showing how I did the flag. I cut the red wool the whole size of the flag, and then appliqued the white strips and blue star field on top.

Here is how I did the stitching. I love using a chalk wheel to mark stitching lines on my wool. If needed I use a small ruler. Its just a nice guideline and I really believe that things don't have to be absolutely perfect to be beautiful!

Next I added colonial knots in the spaces.

Here are a few more photos showing how I made lines and did simple stitching....

On the sunflower, I drew the lines, made running stitches on the lines for texture, and then filled in the spaces with colonial or french knots.

I did the same thing for the Bee Skep...drew lines with the chalk wheel, followed on the lines with a running stitch. 

This is a cool variation of the feather stitch. By now, you have all made feather stitches on the previous blocks. For this stitch, you follow the seam line, and instead of going back and forth with each "arm" of the feather, you stay on each side for three stitches. Then I added a french or colonial knot at the tip of each one. here is an example with contrasting colors for you to see.

The regular stitch is on the left, and the variation on the right. I drew a seam line to follow with pencil, just so you could see. 

Just a few more pictures for you of the stitches close up that I used. They are all simple ones, as I'm not a proficient crazy stitcher! Well, I might be crazy...but I'm not proficient! Ha ha!  This one is just a simple cross stitch with a french or colonial knot inside each space.

This photo is just to show you the detail on the spool. I used the chalk wheel and free handed some zig zags, then stitched over with a back stitch.

In this photo I just wanted to show you the simple feather stitch with a french or colonial knot at the end of each stitch, and the star stitch. These are just long straight stitches caught up in the middle with a tack stitch! Very easy!

I hope you enjoy making this block and all the blocks! Keep posting them on the Facebook Group "Crazy Seasons Mystery Quilt." Below you will find the list of all the designers participating and the date when the blocks are all released on their websites! 

Happy Crazy Stitching!

Jeni