Crazy Quilt Solitaire

Sixty-four cards

How to play Crazy Quilt Solitaire

Eight foundations are set out first — an ace and a king of every suit. Sixty-four cards then go down in an eight-by-eight block, laid alternately upright and sideways so the block looks woven. The last thirty-two are the stock.

A quilt card can be taken only if one of its short ends is exposed. For an upright card that means the cell above or below must be empty; for a sideways card, the cell to its left or right. Its long edges do not matter at all.

Cards go to the foundations — climbing in suit from the aces, descending in suit from the kings — or on to the waste, which will accept an exposed quilt card one rank away in the same suit. You get one redeal.

Freeing a card

Which cards the weave will release

Unpicking the weave

Crazy Quilt Solitaire strategy

Work a region, not the whole edge. Cards freed along one axis open more cards on that axis, so concentrated removal snowballs while scattered removal does not.

Check both foundations of a suit before playing a middle rank. One climbs and one descends, and there are only two of each card.

Use the waste deliberately. A quilt card parked there is a card out of the lattice, which frees its neighbours just as a foundation play would.

Save the redeal until the quilt is genuinely open. A second pass through the stock is worth far more when there are many exposed short ends to feed.

How a quilt locks

How a quilt locks solid

Opening the quilt from the middle outwards

Every card you take frees its neighbours, so where you take from decides what opens next. Pulling cards from one region creates a growing hole that keeps releasing new cards; taking one here and one there leaves the lattice mostly intact and mostly locked.

Sending middle ranks to the wrong foundation

Each suit has one pile climbing and one descending, so a seven can serve either. There are only two of each card in the pack — commit both to the same direction and the opposite pile waits for a card that has already gone.

Ignoring the waste as a building spot

The waste is not just a dumping ground: an exposed quilt card can be played on to it if it is one rank away in the same suit. That is a genuine extra outlet, and forgetting it is the most commonly missed move in the game.

With one redeal

Is Crazy Quilt Solitaire winnable?

Not often. Sixty-four cards locked in a lattice with only one redeal is a hard proposition, and the two-directional foundations create a real decision on every middle rank that you can get wrong without noticing.

The compensation is that nothing is hidden — the whole quilt is face up, so a stuck position is legible. We do not publish a win rate: the figure moves with the redeal count, and this version allows one.

Foundations both ways

Games with foundations running both ways

Two-directional foundations are rare, and three of the games here use them. The fourth row is a control: the same kind of pile-based reserve with ordinary one-way foundations.

Crescent and Algerian share the foundation scheme but hold their cards in ordinary piles. Crazy Quilt is the only one where availability depends on geometry rather than on being on top of something.