Paper piecing! Curves! 3D - Op Art!
What could be better!
This excellent pattern from Audrey Esary was actually pretty easy to do.
Each black and white strip is cut oversized, sewn into place, and then trimmed. You basically do two mirror-image sets of the same half-spiral. Then they are joined around the central "eye", with just a little bit of partial-seam finagling.
The only really "tricky" part was then getting the center circle "embedded" into the outer border. YES! That is one solid piece of fabric with a center hole cut out. I had to flip the pieced center and work backwards and around the border, easing into the curves. It actually worked!!!
For the quilting, I did not want to detract from the visual impact of the mobius itself, so I did parallel vertical lines using clear mono-filament thread. But to reinforce / echo the expanding bands in the mobius design, I gradually increased the distance between the stitched lines, going from .5" at the central section to 1.25" at the edges.
The finished piece (26" x 26") was then mounted on stretcher bars.
