English Paper Piecing Refinements

I had a busy and very productive day today!  I started with a trip to Sew Sisters Quilt Shop in north Toronto to buy the 100 wt silk thread I mentioned yesterday.  They carry the Kimono line from Superior Threads.  I bought two neutrals to see which would work better:

In fact, it does not matter which one I use, because as you can see from the first photo, you really can't see the thread at all.  It is fantastic, and very strong!  Although it is a little tricky to get used to.  In order to make the knot in the end big enough I make a quilter's knot with six wraps, and keep the wraps together carefully as I pull the thread through.  I also had to get out my best embroidery scissors to cut it cleanly.  And it helps to pull each stitch quite tight as you go.  And keep the tail long.  But it is totally worth the extra trouble!

I wanted to use just stash fabrics for this project, but I did buy fat quarters of the two blue fabrics you see here while I was at Sew Sisters.  You know how it goes.  This time I rotary cut 2" squares in all the fabrics, which went quickly and which sew up neatly.

Yesterday I had the idea of pre-folding the paper pieces before I use them.  I tried it today and it is REALLY helpful.  I fold the piece in half, bringing the straight sides together, in all three directions.  In origami you would say I'm making three valley folds.  Then I turn it over, place it on the wrong side of the fabric so it makes a little "mountain," and start to baste:

The folds are exaggerated here so they show in the photo.  I flatten it out before I start to stitch.  Then later on, when I need to fold the work to sew the Y seam, it folds easily and perfectly straight.

So, I am very happy with how it is going.  I think my biggest problem is going to be giving this little quilt away.  Maybe I will find a place for it around here.  ;)

English Paper Piecing

My hexagons arrived today!  I immediately had to try them out:

This is just a leftover strip of fabric from my yoyos.  The hexagons have 3/4" sides, which makes them 1.5" across.  When I got the package they were smaller than I expected!  But now that I have worked with them I find them very comfortable.  In some ways they are probably easier to work with than larger ones.  I can already see that they are going to become extremely addictive.  I only bought a package of 125, and I can feel myself tensing because I know I will run out quickly.

Here is the back:

I used a combination of techniques gleaned from various sources.

• The Paper Pieces website recommends 2" squares for the 3/4" hexagons.  They also recommend leaving the seam allowances untrimmed.  This makes them easier to baste as well as just saving a step with the cutting.  I cut a 2.5" strip down to 2" squares with scissors and by eye, so some of mine may have been a little larger.
• I picked up two helpful tips from the video embedded below.  First, I didn't baste through the paper at all, I just took a tack stitch in each corner.  You can do this easily with the smaller pieces.  Then the basting doesn't need to be removed when you are ready to take the paper out!
• The second helpful tip was to baste and sew with the same thread, all in one step.  This is easy and works great.

The stitching does show a bit with this technique.  Here I used 50 wt cotton in a neutral colour, but I think I will try to find some 100 wt silk, which will hopefully be a little less visible.  I prefer not to use nylon thread.  The Paper Pieces instructions suggest 6 - 10 stitches per inch, but I found I was taking 11 or 12 stitches per 3/4 inch.  That's what looks good to me, anyway.

Here is the first video.  You can skip over the first 5 minutes or so if you are planning to use fabric squares.  Right at the end she also has a great tip for basting larger pieces.

This second video also has some helpful tips to fill in the gaps:

I am trying not to drop everything and start this right away!  My first plan for this technique will be to use it for the centre panel of a 16" x 20" wall hanging that I will adapt from the book Fat Quarter Quilting by Lori Smith.  It is a great book, I will have to review it soon.  After that I have a much bigger plan in mind!