Crazy Quilting….in a Modern Way

For awhile now I’ve been thinking of how I could do some crazy piecing and quilting, but in a more modern way, taking advantage of some of the neat tools the Victorian ladies did not have at their disposal – like cutting templates and rotary cutters and sewing machine with lots of and lots of built-in decorative stitches.  When Renaissance Ribbons sent me a few small pieces of their new Tula Pink ribbons, I was inspired to get a little crazy….in a modern way!

Tula’s ribbons are fun and colorful and coordinate beautifully with her Free Spirit Birds & Bees fabrics.  Since I wanted to keep this block fast and easy, I got started with my EZ Quilting Simply Crazy tool.   Love this little template!

Following the instructions with the tool, I cut out the center patch.  I placed it on a square of stabilizer and added a length of Blue Squirrel ribbon. 

Then is was time to sew a few rows of decorative machine stitching.  I have so many of these pretty stitches on my machine but I never use them so it was fun to look through them all and select a few to add.

Once the center patch was stitched, I added a row of random patches around it. 

The second row around I added more ribbons and stitches along with the fabrics.

Just a few more patches to finish out the corners, and my block was finished.  Now I can’t wait to make an entire quilt with my modern crazy ribbon patchwork blocks.