Creating a Crazy Quilt Block: Part 2

First you start out with a 5 sided piece of fabric. You could use plain, textured, a special "silkie" that is an image printed to fabric, or a print fabric. I like taking a pretty print fabric and cutting around a part that I think would be a nice center. When you cut the piece think about seam allowance since your other fabrics will be sewn around it.

After I pick my 5 sided center fabric, I start pulling out fabrics that I think would go nice with it. It's pretty common to go with how many inches your block is (6 inch = 6 fabrics) and get that amount of fabrics plus 2 or 3 more (6 inch = 6-9 pieces). For this one I wanted to go in a more pink direction so I pulled mostly pink fabrics, but I think greens and yellows would also look wonderful.
Also it's a good idea to try to get as many different textures of fabrics as you can, and limit the amount of prints. Too many prints can cause trouble when you embellish and can take away from your embroidery.

Here is a photo showing how I kind of lay out my fabrics to get a feel of how they would look when I piece. I also do the same thing as I am piecing the block to get a feel for what fabric to use next and where.
Some of these fabrics are really slippery and I'll back them with some iron-on interfacing to give them more body before piecing the block.

Remember there are no hard and fast rules in CQ, so your personal preferences are perfectly okay, again this tutorial is only showing how I enjoy creating blocks, there many ways to crazy quilt out there!

Part 1: Preparing the Foundation
Part 3: Foundation Piecing
Part 4: Continuation of Foundation Piecing
Part 5: Basting and Trimming