What I've Been Up To

The past week or so I have been working on some paper piecing blocks for my "Block Party 2009" class. (Mormon Handicraft at Orem's Deseret Book) This month the technique we learned was paper piecing. My first paper piecing flower took me a week to finish because I only picked it up and worked on it when I felt like it. I really did not enjoy making it, and when it was finally finished, I made the comment "paper piecing is not my thing". I wasn't too excited to start the next one, but it is my goal to finish all 4 blocks every month (2 required, 2 extra's) to keep from falling behind.

Last week I spent a large chunk of two days paper piecing, and I finished two more blocks. I decided not to use the first flower I finished, because it had too many raw edges hanging out - something that I figured how to avoid on the 2nd & 3rd blocks I made. After finishing the 2nd flower, I decided that I do like paper piecing, even though it is pretty labor intensive.

What is paper piecing you may ask? Here are some photo's I took of the progress:

First you cut out little templates (cardstock in this case) and cut a piece of fabric that is 1/4 inch larger than the template. Then you hand baste the fabric to the template.


After you have all the pieces basted, it is just a matter of whip-stitching the little pieces together.



When everything is sewn together, you pull out the basting stitches, take out the templates and press well.


Press well, and applique (hand stitch) to block. Here is the finished block!


Here's the finished block in the other fabric line:


Next project? I saw a tutorial on a blog last week for this cool paper pieced block that I just had to make. I used left over scraps of fabric from my stash to make this block. (4 smaller blocks sewn together to make one large block)

I LOVE paper piecing. It is mind challenging. You sew on the backside, following the lines on the pattern. This results are exact. Sharp points & very straight lines. Here is the back of a finished block before trimming off the excess:


The front of the block before trimming off the excess:


Block after the excess fabric has been trimmed:


Now, complete four of these sections, sew them together, and this is what you get:


Kimball asked me several months ago if I would make a quilt for him. After thinking, he said he wanted the colors to be green & black. After making this pinwheel block, I decided on this pattern for his quilt.

Last week the Cotton Shop had a Moonlight Madness sale. Anisha, Emilie and I went down to it. I grabbed every fat quarter & green bolt of fabric that I could find that matched the green I wanted.

The triangles will be green, the background will be black for this quilt. I think the end result will be striking!

Lastly, Saturday morning I went out and picked these:

I have been juicing out back on the camp chef all day. So far I have nine 1/2 gallon jars of white grape juice.
Tonite I hope to spend time with the green/black pinwheel blocks. I will keep you posted on the progress.