Thanks for joining! I'm so excited you're here! It's time to get this speedy sewalong started!
This week we are cutting out all of our pieces needed for the quilt top! Before I share how I'm cutting and organizing my pieces, I wanted to first strongly recommend cutting your background fabric pieces from the Jumbo Spider Quilt Finishing Instructions BEFORE the background pieces from the Jumbo Spider Block Instructions. Use the remnants from the Finishing Instruction cuts to then cut out the background pieces for the Jumbo Spider Block. This will ensure that you do not come up short with your background fabric later.
I also want to mention, in case there's any confusion, that I listed the cuts of fabric in the Finishing Instructions so that if you are using a directional print for your background fabric, the print will be running the same direction on each cut. If you're using a non-directional print, like myself, then you can go ahead and cut out those pieces as desired so that there's less fabric waste in the end.
Now that those disclaimers are out of the way, I thought it would be helpful to share what notions/supplies I'm using to cut out my fabric and to stay organized during the sewalong!
When participating in a sewalong, I think it's so important to stay as organized as possible so there's less confusion going from week-to-week (even during a 3-week sewalong haha).
One of the ways to do that is labeling your cuts of fabric! I've included labels in the Jumbo Spider Quilt Finishing Instructions and you could utitlize the labels in the Spider Quilt Pattern for the Jumbo Spider Block OR you can make your own!
I had some leftover labels that I used during a garage sale to label my Jumbo Spider Block pieces. You can make it as simple or detailed as you'd like. Since I'm only assembling one block, I didn't think it was necessary to include more info than just the letter on my labels.
If you have multiple pieces of fabric in a cut, use a binding clip to hold them all together! Binding clips are so versatile and one of my favorite sewing notions!
Since you are making large cuts from your background fabric, I highly recommend using a large cutting mat (Mine measures 24" x 36". Unfortunately I can't find my specific mat online, but there's this one and this one that I thought were comparable) and two acrylic rulers (I'm using a 6 1/2" x 12 1/2" and a 12 1/2" x 24 1/2" ruler. I use the Creative Grids brand).
You can utilize the lines on your mat for measuring out the large cuts and butting up two rulers to get the length or width necessary for each cut. I then will use a marking tool (Hera marker or Frixion pen are my favorites) for making temporary guidelines while cutting.
Here's a tutorial I found online for cutting out large pieces of fabric that you might find helpful too!
My favorite way to organize my pieces during a sewalong after they've all been cut is to put them in a scrapbooking container! I find that these are the perfect size for storing not just your cut pieces, but remnants, patterns, blocks etc. I purchased a pack of these on Amazon and currently have four of them filled with different projects. I just grab and go when I'm ready to start working on a project!
I hope you found that information helpful!
And please, if you can, take a minute to check out the sponsors that are tagged below. They are all amazing and super generous companies. This sewalong would be WAY lame without them!
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