Going crazy with quilts

Connie Trowbridge has always sewn. Wedding dresses and prom dresses for her daughters. Nothing real serious, she said. Just whatever needed to be done.

A quick peek around her cheerful cabin at Lake Coeur d’Alene’s Conkling Park reveals many pieces of her handiwork.

Basically, she said, if it’s made from fabric, she made it. Comforters, throws, wall hangings, pillows. All hers. She even reupholstered a couch.

Trowbridge started quilting only a dozen years ago, about the time she and husband, Russ, moved from Spokane Valley to their newly built lake home.

During the couple’s first winter in Yuma, Ariz., Trowbridge turned to making small “crazy quilt” throws. These projects, she found, were easily completed in her small Arizona space.

Crazy quilts evoke the Victorian age. They’re crafted from scrap fabric and lace, all hand-stitched together, accented with hand-embroidered embellishments and then sewn onto a backing.

One of her earlier large-scale efforts is on display in a guest room, one she’s dubbed the “old room” because it houses her grandmother’s wedding dress and 102-year-old bedroom set. Draped across that bed is a queen-size crazy quilt, crafted of satins and lightweight decorator fabrics, in a color scheme of rich creams and burgundy.

These days, her crazy quilt passions lie in giving new life to old fabrics. Doilies from her grandmother’s collection. Embroidered tea towels and dresser scarves. Old bed linens. She loves to bring them out into the open.

“There are some people who aren’t interested in Grandma’s things, older things. I was raised to appreciate the old things,” Trowbridge said. “It’s sad to see things stuffed in a drawer or thrown out when they can be used in a new style and in a new way.”

Think of it as recycling. Or simply finding a new way to keep favorite things out in the open.

“People shouldn’t be putting these lovely things away in a drawer,” Trowbridge said. “I’ve made pillows out of wedding dresses and a throw out of old doilies.”

With a name like “crazy quilts,” one might expect the finished pieces to have a haphazard appearance. They don’t. Trowbridge looks for complementary color schemes when selecting her materials. She also repeats images and patterns from the base fabrics to help bring balance to the final piece.

“When I do a crazy quilt, I always start from the center and work out,” she said. “If I’m going to add a strong color, I try to balance it along the edge. I do look for some symmetry.”

The component pieces of a crazy quilt can come from anything, not just vintage linens.

One quilt Trowbridge created was made from softball uniforms and T-shirts, reflecting 40 years of her husband’s passion for the sport.

She has also done a number of pieces in traditional quilting style, using nontraditional fabrics.

“I love to use quilt patterns, but not necessarily with calico,” she said.

Thus the queen-size comforter on her bed is crafted from faux suede, drapery fabric, satin and some striped, stretchy material from a shop’s sportswear collection. The final product, which took a couple of winters to complete, is rich with reds and coppers, with blue and purple accents.

“Sometimes you can plan and plan and plan and it’ll look awful,” she said. “This one to me works.”