I was lucky enough to be asked again by Megan Collins to test her Brightest Star Quilt! As soon as she posted a sneak peek photo I knew I needed to make a spider web version, so here it is!
To make my spider web version I knew I wanted it to be mostly black, but thought using all black wouldn’t show off the pattern very well. I also really really wanted to get some of the Art Gallery Fabrics Spooky ‘n’ Sweet fabric range so thought this test quilt was a good excuse! I decided to go for Moda Bella Solids Washed Black, Ruby Star Society Brushed in black, and Art Gallery Fabrics Sweet Tooth from the Spooky ‘n’ Sweet collection. (Plush Addict was amazingly kind to get some in as I couldn’t find it anywhere in the UK! Almost looked into a wholesale order, but thankfully didn’t have to go that far!) I looooove candy corn, so had to use this fabric somewhere! I managed to skimp a little on the backing fabric, so have a bunch saved for another future project! Sadly we don’t get candy corn in Scotland, at least not easily, so I may make my own!
Once I got the pieces cut out using the templates provided in the pattern it was a quick quilt to go together! The construction is in wedges and the instructions were excellent. There are included instructions on how to adapt it to make a Christmas Tree Skirt, so I’ll probably give that a go to make a snowflake for our tree this year! (Ideas are already brewing for it!)
I decided to have fun with the quilting, so used a zig zag to stitch over the ditch to make the main points of the web stand out, then used some DMC no. 20 crochet thread to hand quilt the web lines for more texture. (I added the spider after the machine quilting, but before the hand quilting, and hand quilted around it.)
No spider web would be complete without a spider, so I jumped on my chance to buy and play with an Olfa chenille cutter to add a textured spider to my quilt. I layered up the washed black and some red oakshot for the body to make it look like a black widow spider, and layered up the washed black and Ruby Star Brushed for the head to give it a different look. The legs were a few layers of washed black which I cut on the bias so that they’d fray in the wash and stitched on to look like legs. I used black Aurifil thread to attach it to the quilt and an extra bit of batting under its body for puffiness. You can see an outline of a spider on the back of the quilt which is a fun detail!
I used a normal quilt binding, and it was just as easy to bind as a straight quilt! I do a lot of machine binding, but for this one I machined the binding to the front of the quilt before I trimmed it, then trimmed, then hand stitched to the back. I thought it would be a little easier to make sure everything was held together and kept flat if I added the binding before I trimmed the excess backing and binding off.
Took the quilt with me on a dog walk to the woods across from our house, and took some spooky photos. They were fun to edit too, here’s a before after slider from the “normal” edit to the fun “autumnal” edit!
Overall this was a really great quilt to make and I’ll definitely be making another! I’m wanting to do a snowflake, so I may add some chenille to that one too to give it some texture.
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