Beyond Crazy Quilts: Piecing, Patchwork & Embroidery for Unique Designs

By Christine Brown

Create beautiful, layered embroidery

Explore a unique collection of six block patterns featured in 12 creative projects that combine artwork with hand embroidery and embellishment stitches. This guide offers detailed instructions for pieced and crumbled patterns for strip, wedge, and crazy designs, including customized sashing, borders, and finishing techniques.

Learn how to layer embroidery and embellishments on seam coverings, using a variety of stitches including thread, beads, and silk ribbon. With 155+ stitches, you'll also find tips for fabric shapes, seam lengths, and the perfect stitches to enhance your designs.
Discover 155+ embroidery stitches and create 12 stunning projects, including wall hangings, table runners, and pillows, using traditional techniques, silk ribbon embroidery, beaded stitches, and more Christen Brown fans will love the easy-to-follow patterns, piecing techniques, and embroidery tips for adding crazy flair to your embroidery and quilting projects Explore endless creative possibilities with the first book dedicated to mastering beaded embroidery seams--your ultimate guide to adding dazzling detail to your projects

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 164403350X
• ISBN13: 9781644033500
• Release Date: October 2025
• Publisher: C&T Publishing
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Great ideas for art quit embellishments.

- [ ] I have just started doing fun embellishments on my art quilts, this new book looked very interesting and inspired by for cover picture, I bought it. Here is what I found… - [ ] The introduction pages are Project Pictures, but, yikes they are all 1.5 inches or smaller squares, get out your magnifying glasses you’ll need them throughout the book. - [ ] Starting with the table of contents, chapter 1 - Visual Guide, this is all on different embroidery stitches, short, medium or long seams. Then onto vines and stalks, decorative stitches, detail stitches, flowers, and button embellishments (or buttons in bondage). Chapter 2 is “Still Stitchin’, After All These Years” is an account of what the author has done in the past. Chapter 3; “Getting it Together” is on suggestions for project materials, and project beginnings, the pictures are bigger, but the detail is still hard to see. She does include nice pictures of the trimmings and suggestion on other things you need like stabilizers. Chapter 4, Strip, Patch, or Get Crazy is on making basic quilt blocks and yo-yo’s. Chapter 5 is “Block Party” which is wonky blocks, borders and sashing, top stitching, and finishing techniques. When you get to page 46 /175 this chapter covers; Embroidery and Embellishment Stitches, where the author starts showing the readers “…. ribbon, embroidery, buttons and other ephemera”. She does supply a website to find her patterns. This chapter also covers working with beads and more embroidery stitches. The pictures of the embroidery stitches are very well done with nice detail and close ups. Page 85, is the chapter on “Embroidery by Design”. It starts out with “which stitches where?”, “working the stitches”, “vignette and filler shapes”, along with lots of embroidery diagrams. Custom Design Ideas, page 101, to the end of the book, is projects with patterns. - [ ] The overall problem; the small size of the sample pictures, average about 2 inches, makes it hard to see what embroidery stitches the author uses on the sample quilts. There are not a lot of close up detail pictures. The project section has better but not great detail pictures. The best pictures for the detailed work she does are on the front cover and next two pages plus the back covers. There are a few pictures of embellishment details scattered throughout the book. Regardless; her use of beads, buttons and ribbon is inspiring and this should be a fun reference book.