Piece Out

This past week I rediscovered my love for Foundation Paper Piecing.  I first learned this method several months ago on a sewing day with my sisters.  As soon as I "got it" I realized this is the perfect thing to satisfy my OCD tendancies of straight lines and following a pattern directly.

I found a really great site here that has 100 paper pieced blocks.  The quilt featured using the blocks is a crazy quilt with tons of embellishments on it.  Quite intriguing, but not my style.  I have done a few blocks using Block 1 and some scrap fabric. 

Each block looks a little different because I was getting into the swing of things and measuring things wrong, but since it's a crazy quilt, it doesn't really matter as long as the blocks are the same size in the end!
After practicing on these blocks I wanted to try something with a higher level of difficulty.  I will not share with you the star block that I spent waaaaay too much time on and never did quite figure out.  (No matter how I sewed, it wouldn't quite work.  I choose to blame pattern error, even though I know for a fact the pattern is correct!)

Saturday I got up the nerve for attempt 2 on a more difficult block.  The finished block is only 5" square, so the tiny pieces frustrated me a bit and had me saying some very inventive curses.  It was only after I finished the block and sewed the four separately pieced rows together that I realized one of the pieces that was supposed to be black was done in linen.  Oops!  It's okay though, nothing a strategically placed heart won't fix! I also added a little bit of hand embroidery for the thread and the needle.

Overall I was pleased with the result and learned from my mistakes.  I definately will not be making a whole quilt of sewing machines, but it was much easier than I always feared the multiple rows would be.  Here is the free pattern if you want to attempt it. She actually has a ton of free paper piecing patterns on the main site sewhooked.com.  I love the fandom ones, but am not yet ready to attempt them!

Another sewhooked pattern that I made was the spool one.  This one was pretty simple.  I'm thinking of making a wall hanging for my studio with this pattern.

Check back soon for some more sewing room updates.  I haven't forgotten I said I was going to post more, I've just been sewing more than organizing and I don't want to lose my mojo!

Always,
K