Quilty Pleasures: Spiderweb Quilt With Snow

Like many grown kids, ours came to visit last weekend toting her laundry, including this spiderweb quilt I made a couple years ago.

She's trying to preserve this quilt because the previous one had so much laundering and drying the border ended up shredded (crummy fabric, methinks).

"Will it dry outside?" she asked. "Sure," Tom said. "It'll freeze dry."

So she draped it over the deck railing for overnight.

It was just a 10 percent chance of snow, which around here usually means it ain't gonna happen, but sure enough, it did. And so the quilt had a quick tumble on low temperature anyway and is none the worse for wear.

Patchwork Curtains

What to do when your daughter needs curtains and you don't have enough of any one fabric to make them?

You patchwork them, that's what! She wanted the aqua blue and green dots, so the first set of curtains I made were just those two. After that I realized she needed curtains for two more bedroom windows and I didn't have enough of either of those two colors. So I improvised, going shopping in my fabric stash for something that would harmonize.

I had leftovers from her spiderweb quilt, so that's what she got. At first I was having a fit about these curtains, but then I looked again and realized they look like something one might buy at Anthropologie, like this tablecloth.

So I figured what the hell. Keep on sewing.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-Spiderweb Quilt Reveal

You've seen bits and pieces of the spiderweb quilt I've been working on in an earlier post but it's back from Lynne Horpedahl, machine quilter extrordinaire in Santa Fe, and so I wanted you to see it. Since this quilt's on the way to a new home with MBB in Iowa City, I figured what the heck. Here it is. Click on any of the photos here for a closer look.

I used my insane hoarder's extensive collection of 30's reproduction fabrics along with some others stored for a rainy day, which, happily, is happening more and more as monsoon season kicks in here in Northern New Mexico. I tried to make the colors flow from one to the other which was semi-successful. The tutorial I used was this one. Clear instructions, all went well. Thanks, Marit! Notice the top and bottom borders do not match. That was me listening to my Gwen Marston muse, who said to me, "Everything doesn't have to match." Thanks, Gwen!

The scrappy border is made from strips remaining after I made the spiderweb blocks. There's still a load of them, so it's a given that another strippy quilt will be made sometime in the future.

Lynne the Quilter suggested this art deco look pantograph for the quilting and I am happy with the choice. I worried about the plain aqua centers and sashings looking weird with an all-over pattern. No worries, though, because everything kind of fit right into the sashings and centers.

The binding is machine sewn, thanks to a Pat Sloan machine binding tutorial I found on the internet. Thanks, Pat! The video was especially helpful, showing me how to position the blanket stitch backward and where to sew.

Here's the back, pieced, using a modern print echoing the spiderwebs on the front. MBB chose that. I added the green polka dot center strip because I love those dots and that color was calling out, "Choose me, choose me." So it has a new home.

All in all, the spiderweb quilt was fun to make. What would I do differently? Probably next time I would mix it up a bit more with each web and not try for the colorwash. The way the spiderweb blocks are made makes it difficult, so multicolored in each block will be the plan for next time.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday: Selvage Spiderweb Quilt

Pattie Prothero, my sis-in-law, has been quilting since the 1970's, before rotary cutters, nifty plastic rulers and quality fabrics. Back then it was all about geometric shapes and templates, endlessly cutting with scissors, and I wanted no part of the hard work of quilting.  Heck, Pattie even hand quilted her stuff. A hyper, easily distracted person like me would never sentence herself to that kind of torture! She (and her quilting buddies) didn't think the way I did and the quilts Pattie has made are beautiful works of art and precision, loved and valued by the recipients.

Fast forward about 25 years. My kids started college and Pattie acted as my mentor and buddy while I learned how to make quilts, using newfangled gadgets which made quilting more fun and less tedious. Pattie is still making amazing, eyecandy quilts and I always look forward to seeing what is on her design wall.

Here is what I found. She isn't sure how big this quilt will end up, but it will adorn a special wall in her house sometime soon.

A few years ago we became interested in selvages and the projects we might make with them. Pattie was saving her selvages for me, but when she saw this quilt at the Tallgrass Prairie Studio blog, that was all she wrote. Sadly, I knew I was not getting any selvages from Pattie. (Cue the sad music.)

Pattie went to town on this project and says this is one fun quilt to make!

I thought I'd let you see a closeup of the fabrics Pattie's using. She didn't choose any particular color scheme, but let the selvages fall where they may.

Chester, the ginormous kitty, is not impressed.

Quilty Pleasures Wednesday-A Spiderweb Quilt

Notice the individual blocks?

I had never made a spiderweb quilt before, but with the abundance of 30's fabric in my stash it was a no-brainer to use them for this quilt. I used this tutorial from the Quilt It blog. Marit's directions were clear, the  awesome photos helped immensely, and I had no trouble whatsoever making the blocks.

Each block starts with a triangle, the triangles are sewn together on the long side, and then four squares make a web.  If you go over there, tell Marit thanks for me! Sorry, it's only glimpses of the whole quilt but I want MBB to be at least semi-surprised when she receives it.

I like the secondary star pattern this design makes.

 Since I've been messing about with this quilt for months, I should be elected Queen of the Procrastinators. Why? Well, once I finished the blocks and sewed them together, I had to actually think! There was a spiderweb center, but no plans for the rest of the quilt. So far I have a strippy border set off by two inch borders of the same plain fabric I used in the webs.

Depending on the quilt's size after adding strippy all around, I may have to add more stuff. I'm working on a deadline here: I have a quilting appointment tomorrow!

Back to work!