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Sunday, August 9, 2015

Finished! Trees!

Paper Piecing.  For years, I was sure I would hate it.  I went to a demonstration at one of my earlier quilt shows.  I was crazy intimidated by it, plus it seemed like a lot of work.  For a while, my husband and I would watch Fons and Porter together and he would laugh every time there was a episode that featured paper piecing, because I would say how I have no interest in paper piecing.

Except that this year, I've decided that I should learn more quilting techniques, even if all I do is a small project and decide that technique is not for me.  At least I've tried it, and know for sure, plus learned something new.  So I added paper piecing to my quilting bucket list.

My friend Snow LOVES paper piecing, so I asked her to help me.  She suggested doing a square-in-a-square block because she knows I've done those via traditional methods, but I knew that I should do something that I couldn't do via traditional piecing methods, otherwise I'd have no motivation to learn the new technique.



So I went looking for free paper piecing patterns online and found this one--Sasha's Tree from sewhooked.com.  This was my first block, made with Snow.  My thought was that I needed to do it at least once on my own to be sure I understood the technique.  So I decided that I would make 4 blocks, all using the same pattern, to become confident in the technique and to make enough to have a mini quilt.

And here's my finished mini!  It's about 12 1/2 inches square, and is entirely made from non-new fabric, using scraps for all the trees and with the binding coming out of stash.
The verdict is that I don't hate paper piecing!  I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that I like it, but I have seen some really neat patterns out there, so I am absolutely open to more paper piecing in my future. 

This was a Q3 goal for the Finish Along hosted by Adrianne at On the Windy Side (listed as "paper piecing project").  My list of goals for Q3 can be found here.


2015 FAL at On the Windy Side

1 comment:

  1. So great that you're looking to learn new techniques! This mini is lovely.

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