I have had a long love affair with Traditional Crazy Quilts however, I'm having problems finding a pattern with clearly written directions and diagrams. I'm sure someone out there has suggestions of sites or books to help me in my search. Thank you all in advance for any guidance you can offer a newcomer to quilting but not sewing.

Andie :P :-P

Traditional Victorian crazy quilts were made without patterns. Basically you just sew your fancy fabrics to a muslin foundation and embroider and embellish and then put your blocks together in what ever manner suits you. A backing is added and the quilt is tied just thru the backing and the muslin foundation so you don't ruin the look of your needlework on the top.

There are a whole lot of books on crazy quilting. You can probably find a couple of used ones by searching thru Amazon. The silk ribbon emboridery books by Judith Baker Montano are excellent. Plus there are several books on just embroidery stitches.

I'm with scissor Queen - they were highly intuitive. You may want to explore symbols used by the Victorians, or adapt more modern symbology into your stitches.

the key to proper crazy quilt is to start with a piece of fabric with 5 sides instead of 4...then start piecing around this piece, placing the first piece a little bit off center. other than that guideline there are no real rules to crazy quilting...every seam embellished. there are some excellent crazy quilt embroidery stitches books, embellishment books, and of course the 'crazy quilt society'
a good place to start looking at free information/patterns, workshops is : victoriana quilts owned by benita skinner. she has alot of free content and shows how to do alot of fun crazy quilting projects.

You don't have to start in the middle. You can also start your block in one corner. There are probably a dozen different ways to start a block.