Curio is a go

First off, thank you to Laura for sending me the pattern pieces I needed to get started on my Curio quilt, I have been working on it for just over a week now and haven't made as much progress as I had hoped, but it is coming on and I am loving the accuracy of paper piecing!

My first job is to make the kite sections for the centre, in the pattern it calls for crazy piecing and then just cutting out all the kite shapes, but I wanted a bit more order than that so I have been strip piecing my kites.

So far I have 8 full sets, for the full 8x8 block quilt I will need 32 sets but as I am concerned about the amount of fabric I have, I have decided to start off making a 4x5 block quilt and then expand row by row until I run out.

I really like this layout and I am wondering if I should put a Rocky Road quilt on my Master List of quilts to make?

These are my 'leftovers' they were full sets of 4 kites, but I have used up pairs of them for the half Rocky Roads around the edges, these kites will be used for other edges of the quilt- but for now they are waiting patiently until I catch up.

Last night I laid out my current pieces in place on my suitable makeshift design wall and starting cutting my octagons. Hopefully, by keeping everything organised I won't run out of fabric but I think I am going to have to keep my eyes out for some more... really wish that I had bought a full fat quarter pack first time around, but lesson learned I guess!

I have chosen this set as my first octagon;

And these as my second;

As I have 5 full octagons, and a host of partial octagons to do just for my little 4x5 block baby I guess I had better get piecing.

J x

Block Conundrum

Ooooh, I HAVE been away a while! I have done practially no sewing at all since New Year (unless you imclude fixing the hanging hook on my coat!) but I have had great intentions to start on my next quilt.

Last night I found the pattern I had saved for my Curio quilt and was ready to start slicing fabric, but I'm just not keen on it any more. After much research, I decided that Curio looks best in really detailed quilts and I found one that I think I will end up copying, but I am not quite sure how to do it.

My inspiration is here at Bellet Blog and the following picture is her own quilt.

I love the concentric circle spiderweb with a string pieced diamond shape between. It looks like a mixture between a Spiderweb and a Rocky Road to Kansas quilt. But the bit I can't figure out is how to draw the pattern pieces.

I have been researching Spiderweb blocks and the best I have found is at A La Mode which was sent to me by Kris, but the problem I have is that at this step;

(photograph from A La Mode's tutorial)

I need to split it into 3 seperate blocks (the left and right hand triangles would form segments of 2 spiderwebs and the central kite would be a quarter of a rocky road) so that I can make strings for each segment.

but what do I do about seam allowances? The tutorial has already accounted for seam allowances around the outside of the complete triangle (I presume) so do I just add 1/4inch along each side of the 2 blue lines for each of the pieces?

Advice needed as I think I fried my brain trying to do this last night and I really want to get started!

J x

EDIT: thank you Laura, my package arrived last night and it looks perfect. I can't wait to get started now! X