Tuesday, September 16, 2014

FIrst Adventures in Paper Piecing--One Shooting Star




I started out yesterday like a Good Little Quilter sticking to my project at hand. Then out of the blue, I had the feeling I had been eating the same food every meal for a week. I needed some variety. 

I had been itching to try some paper piecing, and Lucy and I had spent the early morning reading about color combinations in "Quilt Colour Workshop". It sounded like a good recipe to play hooky.



I've been doing my fair share of stash building, and I broke into the stacks. I considered I might need some practice at this paper piecing, but I had no idea how hard this was going to be to wrap my head around! 

I watched the video by Paper Piecing for Beginners by Jennifer Mathis on her site Ellison Lane. Then armed with my book, and a vague idea of what I was doing... 

I cut apart one of each template so I would have an idea of the size of fabric needed. 





I kept flipping over the cut template with the fabric to make sure I was going to have a large enough piece to cover the paper template. Even then, I botched this 5-6 times.I think I was trying to get away with as small a piece as possible, and kept shorting it by 1/4" or so. You need to realize there is waste with this method, but the outcome is wonderful.


It just doesn't make the most sense that this is what your aiming for before it's trimmed down. You really have to stay with it mentally to make it work.  I was down to final assembly, and I realized I had one blue star point with the scalloped pattern backward. I had to take a deep breath and walk away. I was so frustrated. After supper, and the family firmly in agreement that I have an obsession here, I ran back down and made another piece correctly. Finally, it all came together--just 5 or 6 hours invested. 

My dear husband wanted to know how many of those blocks I needed for a whole quilt, (sarcasm definitely intended.) 

I told him this one will be a pillow, thank you. (But, I DID learn how to do it! Happy days are here again!)

Come on, Doxie girls.
Let's go sew.

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Julie
Pink Doxie Mama