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.