Crown Royal Quilts

  

 

 

    This week I have been working on a Crown Royal quilt.  For those that don't know what a Crown Royal quilt is, don't be embarrassed.

  About 20 years ago, I had a lady call and ask if I would make a Crown Royal quilt.  She said that she had the bags.  I said "yes" not knowing what it was.  It is a quilt, right--it cannot be that hard.  The next day, she came in with a box of purple bags.  Her and her husband owned a bar and had saved the purple bags for several years.  She wanted a queen size quilt, a checkerboard layout with gold satin.  That was my first Crown Royal quilt.

  Crown Royal is a Canadian whisky.  It comes in a purple bag with Crown Royal embroidered on it.  Over time, the whisky doesn't come in just the purple bags any more.  The quilt that I am working on has 14 different colors of bags and 4 different fabrics.  They celebrate different things such as NASCAR, football, or have a states silhouette.  They can be purple camo, burlap, polyester, cotton, faux suede or velvet.  The size of the bags range from cutting a 3 1/2" sq. to a 5" sq. of the design.

  Since that first Crown Royal quilt, many have been sewn on my machine.  The first thing that I do is clean my machine because the bags create a lot of lint.  Next is to wash the bags to remove any odors from the bar or be stored.  Then, cut them apart.  I remove the seams because sometime the stitching melts when it is ironed.  Now, I have three pieces--the front with Crown Royal on it, the back and the side pieces.  Once that is done, I create a layout for whatever number of bags the customer has give me to work with.  If they have given me enough of the same bags, I can used one of the patterns that I have written as a layout.  The nice thing about it is that each Crown Royal quilt takes on a look of it's own.  When the quilt is done, it is time to clean the sewing machine again.

  Check out the purple bags pattern on our website at JunctionFabric.com

  Happy quilting,

    Terry