The Desperate Housewife’s Quilt – Block 16 Caught in a Web

Welcome to week 16 of the ‘The Desperate Housewife’s Quilt’. Todays block is about making an improvised Kaleidoscope block. Remember, this is not a quilt-a-long. Just follow the blog every week and pick and choose which blocks you would like to make. I will be injecting some uniqueness into traditional blocks, applique, three dimensional, crazy and thread-art blocks. If you make a block please post it on the Flickr group for everyone to enjoy. Also, I have this nifty button under each post that allows you to save the post as a PDF.

Caught in a Web

The restless souls haunt the night and the spiders spin their webs to catch their innocent prey.

Techniques explored

Kaleidoscope

Materials

2 – 2.5″ x 18″ strips of black fabric
2 – 2.5″ x 18″ strips of orange fabric

Making the Kaleidoscope

Sew the black and orange strips together. Make 2 sets.

Using a kaleidoscope ruler, cut 8 wedges from the strips, rotating the rule up and down for each cut. This will alternate the colours.

Kaleidoscope ruler. If you do not have one draw your base line of 7 1/8″ and mark a mid point. From the midpoint draw an 8 1/4″ line. Draw a line from each end of the baseline and end it 1/4″ either side of your mid point line. This will give you a square tip.

Lay the 8 pieces out and sew 2 sets of 4 together.

Shift the second half up one section.

Sew them together.

Trim back the block to measure 6 1/2″ x 8 1/2″

From the left over sewn strip, cut a 4 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ square. Cut twice on the diagonal.

Sew triangle to opposite corners block. Press open seams.

Square block to 6.5″ x 8.5″

From the remaining strip set, cut a 2.5″ x 8.5″ strip using the centre of the strip and measuring 1.25″ either side. Sew to top of block.

Square block to 8.5″ x 8.5″

I hope you enjoyed this Halloween themed block. I added some decorative stitching to make a sticky web. Maybe a spider and a fly somewhere in this block would finish it nicely.

*** Copyright 2011 Jane Davidson. Please remember that these blocks and any blocks designed by guest bloggers should not be used for commercial purposes ( sold as a pattern, published etc) without the written consent of the owner ***