December/January Block of the Month: Winter Webs

Here are the directions for the OMQG January Block of the Month draw. This one is a really great scrap buster that should produce a lovely winter-themed quilt - a perfect fit for our cold nights, but not so "seasonal" that it looks out of place in the other months of the year.

Note that for this month, one triangle unit = one block. The photo above is actually 4 blocks placed together.

Fabric requirements (this will make two blocks): 

• - 8.5" x 8.5" square of solid white or low volume white fabric
• - Varying lengths of fabric strips, from 1.5" to 2.5" wide

Strip colours should remind you of an ice storm: 

• - blue (light blue all the way through to navy)
• - black
• - grey
• - white
• - cream

Solids or prints, whatever works (you should all have guessed this by now!). Here's what I started with:

BLOCK INSTRUCTIONS:

The actual name for this block is called a spiderweb, and there are a lot of online tutorials on how to make them. The measurements are a bit different, but feel free to consult this video from Art Gallery Fabrics for the basic design steps if you're feeling lost. (I followed along with it for my first block when I was putting this tutorial together.)

Note that all seam allowances are 1/4"

Cut your 8.5" x 8.5" white square in half on the diagonal, producing two (isosceles, if you want to get technical) triangles as below:

For each triangle: 

Fold the two side points of the triangle together and finger press to find the centre line of your triangle. 

Make two small marks at the bottom of the triangle, 1/4" from each side of the centre line.

Make two small marks on the two top sides of the triangle, 5.5" between from each point:  

Use a pencil or marker to draw a line between your marks on each half of the triangle:

Now for the fun part - it's time to add your strips! 

Place your first strip right sides together, on top of the triangle, aligning the edge of your first strip with your drawn line. All strips should be slightly longer than the white fabric triangle underneath:

  

Stitch the first strip down on the triangle with a 1/4" seam. Press the first strip out.

HOT TIP: 

For all strips after the first one, fold the point of the triangle under so that you are NOT stitching the rest of the strips down onto the point of fabric triangle (you're going to cut off the extra white fabric once you've done all your strips, so this part should "hang free" after the first strip. It's not complicated, but it took me a couple tries to remember to fold under the point of the triangle, so I'm just giving you the heads up to have your seam ripper ready in case you forget. You've been warned. :)

Align the long edge of your second strip with the unsewn edge of the first strip and stitch (right sides together). Continue with this process (each strip will be slightly shorter than the last one as you move out toward the point of the triangle) until you have connected enough strips to completely cover the first white triangle point. 

Repeat the above process with the other point of your white triangle:

Once you have added all your strips to both points of the triangle, press your strips away from each seam (I suppose that a person could have been pressing each seam as they sewed it, but I'm a little lazy and didn't want to get up and do that each time. I didn't see a big difference with waiting until all the strips were sewn together, but this is totally just a personal preference - whatever works!).

Turn your triangle over on your cutting mat and trim off the extra fabric from each side, using the white triangle as your guide:

 

For the last step, fold back each strip section and trim the white triangle underneath (this is why you had to fold under the white triangle when you were doing your strips!): 

 

And that's all there is to it! TA-DA!!!

And here's the "spiderweb" effect that this block produces when there are 8 of them all together!