Recently, I had mentioned on Facebook that the Spider Web design is a wonderful way to make a quilt, using scraps. Early in my career of making bed size quilts, I enjoyed putting together five quilts of that design. I based my work on a great book called: Scrap Quilt: Strips and Spider Webs by Marcia Lasher. The book is now out-of-print. However, one can often find a used copy from a book dealer or on amazon. Scroll down the page to see one of my quilts.
Spider Web Quilt made by Patricia Cummings in 1992
This is the very last one that I made. It was finished in October 1992 and is a queen size quilt with two borders, one an apricot color (that I dyed myself), and the other fabric is a floral print. I wanted a solid color to break the busy-ness of all the print fabrics I had used in piecing the “webs.”
This technique called for machine piecing, and I tied this quilt. The first quilt of this kind was for my son and was exhibited at a quilt show in Manchester. Too bad we didn’t take a photo of it, hanging in the show. I rarely enter any quilt shows.
After the quilt had resided at the University of New Hampshire, and then been taken along to a first apartment, it had seen better days and was discarded. Another bed size quilt I gave to a friend. A wall quilt (or baby quilt size) Spider Web was sent to a great niece in California, and another Spider Web bed quilt was given to my mother. The quilt is tons of fun to make!
Anyhow, when I think of “Spider Web Quilts,” I always think of this pattern, even though over the years, other quilt patterns by the same name, but not the same configuration, have made their way into print.
Hope you enjoyed seeing this example. The photo was taken in the room that is now my studio. The wide old floor boards in our 1821 home are a charming feature. In their day, boards of this kind were used in less trafficked areas of the home and thought to be inferior to the Southern Pine boards that were more narrow, and that are present in some of the downstairs rooms.
Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications
