Puzzling Quilts

I unintentionally sent out my post announcement for this week with the title “Shells, Rocks and Fibers”, and yet – this week’s post is about puzzles ~ and the other “Shells, Rocks and Fibers” will appear next week. Sorry for the confusion. I guess I wanted to make this week’s email really puzzling 🤔.

Here is “Puzzling Quilts”:

I recently taught for a guild in Illinois and this crossword puzzle quilt was shared during show and tell. I loved it and had to snap a picture. In going through my photos recently I decided many of you would enjoy it too. Sadly, I didn’t get the name of the maker. If anyone knows who she is, please add it to the comments.

I am a puzzler at heart and love all types of puzzles. So I’ve made a few puzzle quilts myself. Way back during Wisconsin’s Sesquicentennial, I entered a guild challenge with that as the theme. Each of the words in the puzzle had something to do with our wonderful State, and the fabric squares (which all came from my stash) did too. I was so pleased with the puzzle part that I decided to border it with the four seasons in Wisconsin, and added buttons and embellishments. The book buttoned to the top right corner contains the clues to the puzzle. It was great fun to make and a winner at the State Fair that year.

In June of 2020 I made a quilt for a challenge in the ThreadBenders group entitled “Puzzled No More” (Click here to read that post). This one focuses on jigsaw puzzle pieces rather than a crossword puzzle theme. There are jigsaw puzzle pieces in the appliqués and the quilting too.

And while writing about jigsaw puzzles, 2020 was a puzzling year for me because I also made a baby quilt for my niece’s baby boy Remington. Remmy’s is an “I spy” puzzle quilt (Click here to read the post).

I even love jigsaw puzzles with a quilty theme.

In 2024 one of the miniature quilts entered in the AQS Paducah show was a sudoku quilt. I have to admit ~ I’m hooked on sudoku also. So I was really intrigued by Charles Cameron’s work. His design of the numbers is fascinating.

And for a really crazy puzzle quilt that I haven’t shared in a long time… this is “Puzzling Spumoni”.

If you want to hear that story, please come to my lecture at the Great Wisconsin Quilt Show. I’ll be sharing it’s story and you can see it there “in the cloth”.

Have you made any type of puzzle quilt?

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And one more thing…

Diane sent me photos of three quilts she’s made in response to a post I did last month about a “Gray Quilt”. Here’s what she said:

“Gray seems to be the color of the day! I have made these three quilts recently all using grays and beiges.”

Gray is very in right now – and these quilts use it beautifully! I especially love all the curves! Thanks Diane!