Pin It Wednesday #26

Sunday's Quilt Inspiration had to do with crazy quilts because I needed some ideas for the crazy quilt bolster I've been working on.  Well, I'm still working on the bolster and need to see how lace was used on some of the Victorian quilts that I've seen.  So I figured that I'd start with crazy lace.  Then we'll just see what happens from there.  All of these photos are on my "crazy, quilts" board.

Notice the spider and spider web in the next piece?  I had to find out why so many crazy quilts included them and, it turns out, there was a good reason: women of the Victorian era, both in Europe and in the States, believed that spiders were a sign of good luck.  Additionally, because spiders "weave" their webs, they were good luck for weavers of cloth and those who used the cloth--needlewomen.  Naturally, because many crazy quilts depicted the interests of the family, needlewomen include the spiders and their webs to represent their own work.  

Although I found several articles on this topic, two were especially interesting reads: http://www.caron-net.com/featurefiles/featmay.html and http://cqmagonline.com/vol09iss3/articles/1002/index.shtml.  I recommend them if you're interested in learning more about crazy quilts in general.  The second article is from Crazy Quilts Magazine Online, which has many articles available for free.

Enjoy some more pins, these from my "vintage, joy" board.
  

Happy Quilting,

Mary