It's Time For One Of The PIGS

For my next quilting project, I'm turning to one of my PIGS (project in grocery sack).  Last December, I organized a number of backlogged projects into individual project bags, to ensure all the component parts would stay together and not accidently be put to an alternate use.  This bag contains fabric intended for a Halloween-theme spiderweb quilt.

I'm using Marit's tutorial as my guide.  After making Summer Romance, I knew I wanted to make another string quilt, but something a little different.  The spiderweb design struck me as a nice alternative to the squares I made last time and a fitting use of my Halloween fabrics. 

I cut my strips and have them in a big pile next to my sewing machine.  The theory is to be random and scrappy.  However, I am not comfortable with chaos and keep finding myself applying some sort of design principle to the order of the strips.  Oh, well!

I'm using newspaper as the foundation but only the center kite-shaped piece and the first strip on either side of the kite are sewn down to the paper.  As subsequent strips are added, they are sewn to the preceding fabric, with the newspaper folded back, out of the way.  The paper is used as a guide for size of the strips and later, to trim the blocks to size.  The photos and directions in the tutorial make it all clear.  This method makes it easier to remove the paper, and seems to be working well so far.

I purchased the fabric for this project last fall at a quilt show.  The kite shaped pieces in the center of the triangle are a print from the Boo Bears line.  The other prints are from Eerie Alley and Haunted Mansion, with a few odds and ends from my stash.

Here's a finshed triangle before trimming:

And after trimming:



To trim, I just line up my ruler along the edge of the newspaper foundation and cut off the excess with my rotary cutter.  Easy peasy and a lot of fun!