Sunday, January 10, 2010

January Spider Bee Blocks

I finished up the last of my triangles for the January Spider Bee. Anna asked that we not sew the four triangles together so that she can mix them up for even more scrappy goodness. Here are a few things I learned along the way:


  • I don't really enjoy scrappy. I know that is hard for some of you to understand but to me it always looks uneven and unbalanced. Of course this is why I will be doing all pink and orange fabrics when it is my month in the Spider Web bee.
  • I don't really understand why these blocks are paper pieced. It is probably common sense but for me it's a concept I don't really get just yet. The advantage is that it make all the triangle the same size and it does make it easy to trim to the right size but it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
  • I over think everything! Maybe this goes back to the concept of scrappy being so hard for me but truthfully I spend a long time looking at the photos of blocks that were already done and imagining that if I were Anna and I was mixing these up would there be room for these triangles in the finished quilt. She sent along fabrics but I tended to use more of my own scraps because I just couldn't grasp all the Christmas fabrics that were in my scrap bag. I don't think she intends for this to be a Christmas quilt just scrappy so it was hard for me to use some of the very blatant Christmas prints but I did sneak a few in there.
  • If all of the starting strips aren't the same size it bugs me. I think this is because they don't look like they are going to line up correctly. Or maybe it is just my compulsive desire to have things more matchy matchy.
  • Overall the blogs were fun to make. The constant trips back and forth to the iron were not so much. I should be really good at making these by the end of the year. 2 down and 20 more to go. Not including the extras I will need to make for my own quilt.




These blocks were made using the tutorial that can be found at Quiltville. You can also check out our bee blog here.

3 comments:

  1. Greta, you should think about getting one of the Clover mini irons and a tabletop ironing board. They are very handy for pressing-intensive blocks, at least, I find them to be. They do get extremely hot, but I like not having to make constant trips to the ironing board.

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  2. I have my ironing board parked right next to my sewing table usually for this sort of thing. All I have to do is turn and iron and then continue on with the sewing.

    I have to say I love these blocks. Its all the oddities, like weird fabric combos and mismatched sizes that make them so interesting for me.

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  3. My sister has her ironing board lowered to desk height and set up to make an "L" shape with her sewing station like Bea said above. When she goes to quilting retreats she uses a folding, wooden TV tray that she has covered with padding, Insul-Bright and duckcloth. I need the exercise so I just do the Up&Down.

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