WHWRS Sampler Quilt Class: Block 11: Foundation Paper Piecing

Alright friends, It's time for paper piecing!  Paper piecing is awesome for making quilt blocks with odd angles, sharp points, complicated designs, or anything that would be difficult to get precise results with traditional piecing.  One of my favorite paper piecing projects to date is this set of pillows I made for my two sisters:

Made and designed by ME!

Here are some other examples of quilt blocks made with this technique (with varying degrees of difficulty/intensity, in no particular order):

Piece By Number - THIS IS A GREAT SITE FOR FINDING FREE PAPER PIECED PATTERNS!

Generations Quilt Patterns

Don't Call Me Betsy

I Finally Have Time

Wombat Quilts - ANOTHER EXCELLENT SOURCE FOR FREE PATTERNS

Fave Quilts

Shape Moth

Lillyella

Freequiltpatterns

As you can see, the possibilities are pretty much endless!  If you have something specific in mind - I bet you could find a pattern for it by doing a google images search.  :)

Now for the technique.  Most people paper piece by sewing directly onto regular old paper.  Here are two GREAT tutorials, especially for beginners:
Ellison Lane
Craftsy

I really like to use a special method that requires freezer paper instead of regular paper.  I'll be teaching the traditional method in class, but in case you're interested in this alternate method, here's an awesome tutorial:
Green Cheese Quilting

And here is another method I found in my search.  I haven't tried it myself, but it looks interesting:
I Finally Have Time


Here is the link to the block we will be making for our quilt class.  If you are making the 9 inch block, you will need to print it at 75%.

Craft Sew Create

Here is another great beginner block you could do as an alternate.  It's a little easier than the spinning cards block, and has fewer pieces.  Amanda's block finishes at 10 inches, so I have adjusted the size for you so you can make 9 inch and 12 inch blocks.

Crazy Mom Quilts via Craftsy

Also, I'm providing instructions for an alternate block - the Scrappy String block. 

Film in the Fridge

This block is AWESOME for using up scraps.  It is a paper pieced block, but you don't have to use a pattern.  You just start with a piece of paper and sew your strips onto it.  My favorite string block tutorial is here:
Film in the Fridge

Here are a few more examples of some awesome scrappy string quilts.  ("Scrappy" usually means it was made from scraps, so that there is lots and lots of variety and most scrappy quilts don't necessarily follow a color scheme.  They can be all over the place or very controlled).

Married to a BMW

Film in the Fridge

Here are the instructions.  A couple of notes I forgot to add - make sure you use a dry iron (steam will distort the paper).  Also make sure to use PAPER SCISSORS, and old rotary blade, and an old needle.  Paper is really hard on these things. 
WHW RS Sampler Quilt Class:  Block 11:  Paper Piecing

And here are the patterns you'll need to make the blocks:
Super Card Trick Pattern - Print at 100% for 12" block, Print at 75" for 9" block
Kaleidoscope Pattern - Print 4 copies of page 1 for 12" block, Print 2 copies of page 2 for 9" block

Character Pillows

I've been dying to share these with you!  They've been finished for quite awhile now, but since they were birthday presents for my two sisters, the final post had to wait.

One of my sisters is an avid Harry Potter fan, the other is a huge Dr. Who lover.  So, naturally, I started searching the web for Potter/Who ideas.  I found some paper pieced patterns, but had no idea what I would use them for, so I kept searching.  Finally, I came across this super cute etsy site:  Heart Felt Design.  Seriously, go check it out - she makes these ADORABLE character pillows.  Of course, I wanted to make mine myself.  So I did.  See:

I sat down and made up my own paper pieced patterns for the Potter and Dr. faces.  No, I won't be sharing them with anyone, and no, I won't make these to sell.  I already feel a little guilty for copying Heart Felt Design's idea. Of course, my pillows are paper pieced with cotton, hers are appliqued with felt, but still. 

Here is Harry, all squared up and ready to go.  He is about 16 inches square.

Of course, I couldn't stop there.  I had to go back and try out those paper pieced designs that started me on this road in the first place.  I found both of my small designs at Fandom in Stitches.  It's an awesome place.  The HP Snitch pattern comes from THIS page.  There were some pretty tiny pieces, but I think it turned out okay.

Here is Harry with his mini block:

And here is Harry the pillow.  Isn't he cute?

The mini block went on the back of the pillow, so now it is "reversible."  :)

Next up, Dr. Who.  I haven't had a chance to watch Dr. Who yet, so I'm hoping this is an accurate representation of Dr. #10.  Can you tell?  His bow tie came out a little wonky, but I wasn't about to go back and redo it.  And those triangles in the corners?  Those are elbow patches, thank you very much.

For my mini Dr. Who block, I had to go for the tardis.  My original plan was to make THIS one, but in the end I decided it had too many pieces.  So I went with THIS one from Fandom in Stitches.  Unfortunately, this pattern had some TINY pieces and my papers kept ripping and nothing lined up properly.  My middle section turned out HORRIBLE.  SO I scrapped it and started over again, this time skipping a few parts and simplifying the whole thing.  The overall block still turned out a little crazy, but much better...

Here is the Dr. with his mini-block:

And here is Dr. pillow:

And the back, with an easy envelope closure:

I'm a little jealous that I don't get to keep them for myself.  

Spring/Summer Table Runner and Towels

Of course, I had to make something for my moms for Mother's Day this year.  For my mom, I had to make another table runner to go along with the fall/winter runner I gave her for Christmas.  This time it was a spring/summer runner.
Unfortunately, I don't have ANY photos from any of the steps along the way.  I must have been too busy sewing!  But I have lots and lots of finished photos...

For the Spring side, I didn't want to spend tons of time coming up with my own original idea.  Fortunately, I had the perfect pattern already available.  I won a copy of Quiltmaker magazine from Ribbon Candy Quilt Company - who is the designer of the super cute "Skinnies" pattern line.  The magazine included a pattern for this "Spring Skinnie."

I adapted the pattern a little bit to make it fit the longer table runner and I think it turned out gorgeous!  It was fun to pull out all my spring color scraps and do some matching.

The entire thing is appliqued, except for the borders, of course.

For the Summer side, I really had no clue what to do.  I searched Pinterest and eventually found this pin on one of my boards that kind of stuck:

Click on picture for link

In the end I decided to go Red, White and Blue - so this runner is perfect for the 4th of July.

Once I had decided to do the Circle of Geese blocks, I sat down with some colored pencils and several small copies of the pattern and experimented with color.  These are the three blocks I came up with, all from the same pattern!

 For quilting, I knew that I wanted something that would work for both sides of the table runner.  Last time I used fusible fleece, so I was able to do custom quilting for each side, then fuse it all together.  This time I wanted to use leftover batting that I already had on hand, plus I wanted a thinner runner.

 I wasn't able to get swirls out of my head so I ended up using Angela Walters Concentric Circles design from her book Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters.  I was a little nervous about it because I had spent tons of time practicing it on paper and wasn't too impressed with my results.  Happily, the design looks MUCH better once it is actually quilted.  I really love how the quilting turned out.  It is dense, which is good for a table runner.  It also adds a new level of texture without interfering with the quilt design, so it is perfect.

I decided to try my hand at curved corners and they turned out great!  Because of the curves, I used bias cut binding for the first time ever (sheepish grin) and it worked beautifully.  Plus I didn't have to worry about mitered corners!  Score!

I auditioned several different fabrics for the binding - some of which probably would have been amazing, but in the end I went with this blue because it seemed the safest.  I really wanted something that would work well for BOTH sides.

And there you have it.  Another table runner.  It's about 15" x 38"


For my sweet mother-in-law, I embellished a few dish towels.  One can never have too many dish towels (especially my MIL.  She loves dish towels).  These are perfect for summer:

 

I think the watermelons are my favorite.

Up next... Father's Day!