Monday, May 24, 2010

so, it's just after midnight, and it's still 75 degrees outside. what happened to spring?

i made a little bit of progress tonight. i turned some of this (a bunch of vintage linen fabric scraps i bought off of etsy, that i had absolutely no idea what to do with):

Vintage Linen Scraps

into this:

Spidey Block!
what a great way to use some of these little scraps!

i used the spiderweb tutorial found on quilt-it.blogspot.com. i wanted to try this block specifically for two reasons:

a.) i've been obsessing - OBSESSING - about it for the past week, ever since i came across these spidey web blocks on a different blog

and

b.) i wanted to try this non-paper piecing method of creating these blocks.

i'm still undecided. i honestly thought this block was going to be fairly complicated, but i found that the most tedious part of it (other than measuring & marking on the original triangles that were cut from the 12.5" square were cutting the strips. seriously! do you see that pile up there? all the pieces are different sizes, so it's not like i could stack a bunch up and just...zip! i cut them one by one. i know there is a better method out there - like stacking up similarly-sized pieces, etc. - but, anyways. i found the strip cutting to be the most time-consuming part of the whole process, because some you want to be fatter (2"), some skinner (1" and 1.5"), so, well, it's still a learning process. i will probably try the paper piecing method next, to see which one i think is easiest... this version was pretty easy, but there is a lot of waste with the cutting off the "corners" (or what have you) of the original triangles at the end. so we'll see. but, i have to say that i am pretty impressed with how this block turned out, considering that i had no idea what i was doing (for the most part), and sewed it pretty quickly.

*and then*, i was going through one of my fabric bins, and came across these fabrics:

Fabric

ooh. ahh. i'm sure they were meant for yet another crazy eight quilt, but, i don't know...i think these are versatile enough to mix in with other fabrics!

and speaking of fabrics...in search of my patricia bravo fabrics, i came across the *awesomest* fabric website, hawthorne threads. i've already started a wish list; i'm sure this site will be one of my most frequently shopped! they just have a wonderful, wonderful selection of fabrics. soo excited!

ok. that's enough for this time. i'm getting ambitious with this blog...hopefully, i will keep it (somewhat) up! :)

1 comment:

Julie said...

I love these spiderweb blocks. I haven't come across that technique before. Got it bookmarked....along with so many others I want ot have a go at! Juliex