Motivation

I’ve been looking at spider web quilts for a while now, and added quite a few to a Pinterest board. The versions with a matching narrow band on each side of the center kite shape were appealing. I used rinse-away stabilizer as the foundations, as it could be left in place and would make the small scraps stronger. A small quilt was drawn up in EQ8, the size determined by the width of the rinse-away, and a trial set of 12 triangles cut. A yellow paisley was chosen for the centers, and one of the colors in the fabric – red – cut into 1” strips.

The best part about scrappy quilts is the variety of fabrics, and the chance to use things up. There are lots of strings waiting to be used, and after sewing the red strips to the 12 yellow kites, I started stringing the blocks along. And after pressing, it was apparent that the blocks were too much the same. The narrow red strips seemed too strong. So, the triangles were tossed in the trash.

Then they were rescued, after I realized they didn't all need to have red sashings. I was able to find variety for both the center kites and narrow strips. I also realized that if all the centers were sewn with the sashing pairs, it would be easy to mix them up and use long strings for the other pieces.

I wound up with 3 center fabrics, adding a red bandana print (2 similar prints) and a bright blue with yellow flowers. The paisley has both red and blue in the print. The narrow 1" sashings were cut either 8.5” long (for 2 triangles) or 17” long (4 triangles), since I wanted them to match for sets of 4. After sewing the first side and pressing, they were cut apart and the second side sewn and pressed (as above.) Next I’ll cut these apart, mix them up, and start sewing the next strips on. Some will be long, and I’ll also make use of short strips and even some triangle scraps to fill them out.