Third Place

Spring Crazy Quilt was designed by Kelly Clark to be published in Needlepoint Now. Kelly presented the concept to me before she had even taken a single stitch. I was intrigued by her idea and looked forward to working with her to publish the project.

When I received the piece, along with Kelly’s stitch notes, I realized that in order to present the design in a cohesive format, I would have to stitch it. I don’t mean this as a negative statement towards Kelly. There is an art to writing a guide in a format that can be followed without one-on-one instruction.

I tried to stay true to Kelly’s original, and for the most part I did. Other than charting proper stitch sequences, my deviations are in the top stitched and ribbon borders. At the point that I was ready to add the embellishments, the magazine article was complete and I felt a sense of freedom to deviate from a few of the surface embroidery stitches that were not suited to needlepoint such as the fly stitch and Portuguese knot on a diagonal.

I had the needlepoint finished into a quilted banner to keep the flavor of quilting.