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I might be a bit late monitoring this. I have to pick the hubby up at the airport. Hopefully not delays.
I used to belong to a quilt guild. I will probably join one again soon, but for the time being, I am a member of an embroidery guild. One of the projects right now is Hearts for Cancer Patients. The rules are pretty open but they are supposed to be 5” square, which will be made into a small pillow. I decided to combine my love of quilting and embroidery. I already had a template that was 6” that I had used before in paper piecing. I reduced the pattern by 83% and it was fine.
I’m not sure how many people are familiar with paper piecing. Over time, I’ve learned a trick or two which I will share. The biggest problem with paper piecing is the pattern is on one side and you sew on the other side. Below is the pattern I used.
I’m not sure you can tell but I have sewn most of the pieces already. I’m to walk through adding piece #9 to piece #8. The first thing you do is fold back the area you are going to piece exactly on the line as I am showing above. It isn’t completely folded back or you wouldn’t be able to see the numbers.
Piece #9 is white and not very big. One of the best tricks I learned to do this, is after you fold the piece back all the way, you trim the fabric it attaches to by exactly 1/4”. Another good trick is always make the piece you add definitely larger. It is not fun to keep fiddling with a small piece to make sure it will cover the specific area.
Trimming to 1/4” allows you to add the next piece exactly matching the fabrics.
Remember the fabric is on one side and the pattern is on the other. I’m using a pin to hold the white fabric in place. Remember you will be flipping this over to sew it. Also, and this may seem obvious, but you are sewing the fabrics good side to good side.
Now flip everything over and make sure no fabric is folded under (It happens) and sew exactly on the line on the pattern side. This will piece #8 and #9 with a nice 1/4” seam. It is best if you set your stitch length to 1.8. You will be tearing the paper off the back and it is easier if the stitches are closer.
After you sew the pieces together, flip the piece over and make sure the new piece will cover the area it needs to.
Once it is sewn, and you know it covers the area you want it to, you again trim at 1/4” as below.
When you tear off the paper, wherever you can, fold the paper back and forth several times. That will make it easier to rip off and go slowly, you don’t want to distort the stitches.
I haven’t steamed the heart down yet, or done the fine trimming, but the paper piecing is finished and the paper is off the back.
One thing more to note. Add the pieces as they are numbered. So with this I began by piecing #1 to #2 with a 1/4” seam, and then add #3 to the combined 1 and 2. Above 1 is the white middle triangle at the top. Two is the red with white circles; 3 is the red with gold swirls. Keep adding pieces in numerical order until it is finished.
Another quilting group is finishing all of these 5” squares into pillows and they will be giving them away to cancer patients.
So what are you quilting?