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.