The "Fan Quilt", out of rehab....

I renamed this...it is easier to type than "The John Campbell Quilt"!
So...
--I took off the old trim around the perimeter
--took off the little corner fans and repieced them more accurately
--quilted in the ditch, by machine, around the patches in the main body of the quilt. This helped with the floppiness a great deal.
--sewed a different trim on around the perimeter, by hand, trying to get things as squared up as possible. The mitered corners are much better with this flat trim than they were with the gimp trim. I like the pattern in the jacquard ribbon better, too.
--added some appliqued patches in the center section to liven it up a bit and to create some seam lines that I want for later. I still may add a few more...
--took off the trim around the central black block. I have just pinned the block back into place for visual reference, but I will be working it separately (much, much easier that way). I like it without the heavy red border, too.

So now I am good to go!
The above picture is the way the quilt was...(also minus all the border embellishment).


Above is the "after". I think the beige inner border is much more consistent in width...that was one of my main goals. The trim was wide enough to cover the inconsistencies and even things out.
It is important to apply the standards of sane quilting construction to crazy quilts, in my opinion. And it really matters if you are sending your quilt out to be judged. An experienced AQS judge is a Point Bonita attendee...her name is Bettina Havig At my request, she went over my Crazy for Flowers quilt from a judge's perspective (what a privilege that was for me) and showed me where points would be subtracted from my score...ouch, but she zeroed in on the wavy cording along the border which I knew she would....
So with her owlish and uncompromising gaze looming imagined over my shoulder, I did the darn best I could to get The Fan's act together. It's really helpful to be as accurate as possible from the beginning....
It is still nowhere near perfect, but that is because from the get go I didn't try and get those border blocks sized just right. But I like my new little fans...

That weirdo veiny blue and red fabric was appliqued on...I haven't tweaked a CQ like that before, taking the time to applique and refine the composition. It's a good new step in the process for me. Plus that fabric is so cool...came from my table mate at Point Bonita, Susan Else who always has the strangest fabrics in her stash. There are little bits of her fabric added in several places "after the fact", of piecing that is.

The Black Hole.....Kerri Murphy, a lovely gal on the crazy quilt lists, does us the service of listing links to crazy quilts that are for sale on ebaY...I've been collecting a ton of images of motifs done on black backgrounds from those quilts...don't know what will happen here yet but it will definitely be vintage inspired. Thank you, Kerri! And it will be done last, as a yummy desert when the rest of the quilt is embellished...