Wednesday, May 14, 2014

WiP Wednesday: Web Piecing

So, when I was piecing my several simple patchwork quilts late last year I discovered the awesomeness of web piecing. I didn't find a tutorial or anything I just did it and thought I was so clever, only to discover it was already a thing, but I'm still pretty clever. ;) So now I've applied that into so many of my other quilts that typically aren't pieced that way and I love it! I made two tops this week! I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced for WiP Wednesday.

So last week I just had a bunch of squares and trimmed HST. I got my small people together and we picked a layout. It was fun. I gave them each a pile of HST and then went down the row. Each handed me one and if it wasn't an exact match to the one next to it I flopped it in place. They're much better at random than I am.

With just a few minor adjustments we got this layout done! We needed an adjustment because my oldest daughter is too much like me and sorted her fabric so there was a lot of bold/dark at the top and a lot of low volume at the bottom. It made me smile.

Then we got to the web piecing. This was on Mother's Day - my fabulous hubby gave me the perfect day complete with sewing! So once the quilt was all laid out I piled the fabric by rows then put them in order on my table. Instead of doing it into twelve blocks I just sewed all the first two squares down the side and then continued sewing one square at a time down the columns. I used the totally high-tech method of a pill bottle to keep my place. I was always sewing the one above the bottle. When it was done I'd move the bottle down one and pick up the square that was under it. The system was perfect for keeping my place as my five cute munchkins needed me to stop and go a lot.

In the middle of all of this I found this awesome Supernova Friendship Swap! So basically you get with a friend, just one, and you each sew ten blocks of the Supernova quilt. Five to keep and five to trade. Then you make up the quilt with one extra for the back or a cushion. I couldn't wait!! Izzy from Dizzy Quilts and I are doing it together and these are more or less my fabric choices. I swapped a few of the Navy ones and added another green and a couple of purples. It's not too late to join if you're interested. If you don't have a friend to do it with Stephanie can hook you up too!

So back to the quilt... with the web piecing I finished it up super quick! It took maybe two days to put it all together. Can you tell it was super-windy for the picture? It looks like the words coming down the screen on Star Wars. I also like how you can't see my hubby's feet even though it's blowing like crazy in the breeze.

Here's a closeup of the awesome Color Me Happy fabric and the fun piecing. I love how this turned out! Now I just have to figure out how to quilt it. Suggestions?

This quilt went so fast I don't even have a picture of the progress. I pieced the 324 squares, ironed, and basted it in less than 24 hours. Woohoo! This is our I-Spy quilt and once quilted it is going to be our picnic/firework blanket. I'm so excited!
So that was my fun week. Hurray for web piecing! I hope to get the quilting started on a few of these and not get distracted by the fabric that is coming in the mail today and tomorrow, yeah right! Thanks for stopping by!

6 comments:

  1. Love the HST quilt--so cheery! And what a good system for randomness.

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  2. Love the quilt, it turned out great and I love the colors (especially that mint color), love the web piecing...It's the method I use to build the blocks, but I never did it for a full quilt though. It would probably drive me crazy because I have an urgent need to press after each seems...The quilt is absolutely lovely!

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  3. Lovely HST quilt! I use web piecing too, though I've never heard it referred to by that name. I think I picked it up from an Eleanor Burns Quilt in a Day book and have been using it ever since. I love any technique that speeds up the tedious. Though pressing it all at the end can be a bit trying!

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  4. The HST quilt is so nice! Love the background colour.

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  5. I've never seen web piecing before so I totally believe that it was your idea all along, and I won;t hear otherwise :) Love that you had your kids involved in the placing of the HST's and it produced such a lovely quilt!

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  6. I've never heard of web piecing...what a concept! I'll have to try it out sometime. Your projects look great!

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