One quilt at the 2013 retreat that got some oohhhs and ahhhhs was a Stringy Spiderweb. Here are some well illustrated how-tos from blogs:

with paper: http://quiltville.com/spiderweb.shtml

without paper: http://quilt-it.blogspot.ie/2009/01/tutorial-spiderweb.html

with selvages: http://tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.ie/2010/04/spiderweb-tutorial-for-selvages.html

There are examples of this type of quilt in the Quilt Index, including this lovely example from the  early twentieth century.