Foundation Paper Piecing returns: Mug Rugs

I've been returning to foundation paper piecing again after a long break.  I had a commission which I'm currently working on- can't show that I'm afraid- but I can show you the FPP pattern I've designed especially for an online interactive CraftyMonkies class.  

The pattern is for a mug rug.  There's a choice of mugs- plain or striped, and choice of text and these reflect easier and harder skills that I'll cover in class along with sharing as many paper-piecing tips as I can in the three-hour class!  If you're tempted to join in, you will be very welcome.  The class runs on Saturday 8th August, 10-1pm BST and bookings are welcome from anywhere in the world, find all the details here, scroll down.   

If you are a first-time Zoom class participant, don't panic! CraftyMonkies classes have an experienced host, Rachel, who settles you into class, sorts out technical niggles and controls sound and vision! This means that everyone gets their chance to interact without being talked over and to ask the question you really want to ask You 'll be able to have a close view of my hands, cutting mat and sewing machine presser foot so you can see exactly what I am doing.  It's a gentle, happy sociable experience too.  I'm really missing my sewing meet-ups at the moment and an interactive Zoom class like this is a great replacement.  

Spring Fever

I made a quick little Easter make from a Sew-Ichigo pattern that was so easy and such a cute result, I thought I'd share:

Using the Spring Chick block from the Spring Fever pattern set, I made a quick sandwich of batting and backing fabric and some outline quilting on the machine.  I then trimmed the block to the original square, folded it in half lengthways and drew a half egg shape free hand.  I cut through the double folded layer to create the egg shape.  Then stitched ⅛" from the edge to secure the layers and finished with single bias binding, 1 ½" wide and included a loop.  The Spring Chick can be found in the Sew-Ichigo pattern set which includes lots of other birds as well as tall and short tulips and the same patterns are also available singularly.  

Find the patterns in the Sew-Ichigo Payhip and Craftsy and Etsy shops.  All the designs are foundation paper pieced.

Farmer's Wife 1930s Quilt Along: Equipment Suggestions

Welcome to the third preparation post for the 1930s Farmer's Wife Quilt Along.  The first was a two-parter about fabric choices- see here and here.  This post is about the sort of extra equipment you may want to considering addition to your usual supplies - quilt ruler, rotary cutter, thread etc.  I've compiled three lists for three different construction methods: foundation paper piecing, template piecing (hand sewn or machine) and English paper piecing. These are just my personal suggestions, they are not sponsored or affiliate based.  Keep an eye out on Periscope today too, I'm hoping to talk about some of this equipment in my first live interactive broadcast, as Periscope is related to twitter you'll find me on both as @verykb on there and I'll post on Twitter when I go live.  **Edited to add I did manage to record my first scope only to delete it accidentally straight after, I did mange to say hello to some familiar and new faces and I hope to have a better handle of it by Monday! ** If you have other suggestions about equipment and gadgets, please leave a comment at the end of this post to share!  

Foundation Paper Piecing:

I plan to foundation paper piece all my blocks and these are my essentials!

From left to right:

• Paper for printing patterns.  So far, each block has taken two sheets of paper for the foundation pattern pieces so that's going to be around 200 sheets of paper if you are making all the blocks.  You could use the excellent foundation paper by Carol Doak for CT publishing, or the vellum paper- I am a fan of both, but I am using very thin budget printer/copier paper. It is so thin, I need to feed the sheets individually into my laser printer so it doesn't get mashed up but it does the job and is easily available on eBay or in local shops.  
• Add-a-Quarter ruler.  I am a recent convert to these, you can see my review of one here.  It is a quilt ruler with a quarter-inch lip and helps to trim seams whilst foundation paper piecing.  I also use it for templates (see below).  It stays in place and I find it safer to use than a standard quilt ruler and I am less likely to slice my finger tips!  Available in online quilt shops, there's a variety of lengths etc. 
•  Elmer's Glue for glue basting seams.  There are some tricky seams to join in some of these blocks with many seam points to match up and glue basting is a great help.  Elmer's washable school glue isa USA phenomenon but I've bought it on Amazon UK and and I decant mine into tiny bottles (eBay) that crafters use for glueing gems- they come with a thin metal nozzle and aren't expensive. Tiny dots of glue are used on the seams and then the seam is heat set with the iron before sewing.  The seam will also open up relatively easily afterwards if you want to press open. Sharon Schamber is  is queen of glue basting and her daughter Cristy sell supplies.
• Sharp machine needles.  I like either Schmetz Microtex 70, especially for finer fabrics like lawn or Superior needles 80 which are titanium making them hardwearing and long lasting.  I keep my paper needles separate from my other needles.
• Hera Marker or blunt smooth blade butter knife  I use these to score and pre-crease the seam lines on the pattern pieces.  It makes it easier to flip the paper back and forth and helps when pre cutting your fabric for the different pieces.
• Revolving cutting mat.  This is a bit of a luxury  but I find it really handy.  Not everyone likes them and you need sufficient room for it to rotate.  I've just ordered a tiny Fiskars mat specifically for these little 6" blocks.   Amazon and eBay are good sources.

Templates

There are a few options with templates.  You may choose to print out the templates from the CD onto card or printer paper and cut them out with or without seam allowances but there are other options left to right:

• Sandpaper covered board. This is a homemade item.  I use a hard cover from an A4 notebook, a sheet of very fine sand paper and double sided tape to join the two together.  You then place your fabric right side down on the board, your template on top and the sand paper allows you to draw round the fabric without anything shifting.  Its a very handy basic bit of kit.
• Elmer's Glue.  See above!
• Sewline Pencil with ceramic lead.  I find these drawn on fabric without dragging.  Many people use standard soft pencils e.g a B lead. 
• Template plastic.  You may instead choose to trace your templates onto template plastic- I use a mix of bought template plastic and recycling notebook overs.
• Add-a-Quarter ruler  See above.  Especially useful for either adding quarter inch to fabric shapes that are drawn with no seam allowances.
• Revolving cutting mat.  See above.

English Paper Piecing

Jo Avery of My Bear Paw is English Paper Piecing her blocks and using the templates to make her paper pieces.  You can see her first block here.  She'll be doing a number of guest posts for the quilt along and is posting her blocks on Instagram, she's @mybearpaw.  I've only included a couple of extras to help with English Paper piecing:

• Needles.  These are very much a personal choice but good quality needles make a huge difference.   For hand piecing, I use Jeana Kimball's Foxglove Cottage straw needles.  These are quite long and flexible and not really suitable for EPP but the sharps needles are sturdier.   You can find Foxglove Cottage needles at sewhot.co.uk.   Lots of people like Tulip Needles- available at Sewandquilt
• Sewline Glue Stick.  Glue basting instead of thread basting can speed up the preparation in English paper piecing and this is my favourite temporary glue.   I only use a little dash as the fabric can adhere to the paper quite firmly sometimes.  I've got a tutorial here on how I glue baste.

Whatever method you are planning to use for your blocks, I hope you find something of use here.  I've aimed to keep it low cost and faff free rather than buying lots of expensive kit.  Remember to check into the errata page before you start a block in case there's anything extra you need to watch out for, otherwise, I'll see you 14th September with the first guest blogger, meanwhile, here's a sneak peek at the quilt along schedule for September:

 14th September

Block 1 Addie : Wynn of Zakka Art

Block 2 Aimee : Me

21st September 

Block 3 Alice : Me

Block 4 Ann Charise of Charise creates

28th September

Block 5 Anne : Jo of A Life in Lists

Block 6 April : Me

Spring Cleaning in Love Patchwork and Quilting

There are so many things that I have been working on for the last few months and it feels like they are all just about to appear!  Today is a big one for Penny and I as Sew-Ichigo.  We have designed a 'Spring Clean' themed foundation paper piecing cover booklet for Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine and it goes on sale in UK shops today and hits USA in around 4-6 weeks.

Part of the booklet is a detailed tutorial packed full of techniques to make your piecing easier and more accurate- construction of my radio block is explained in great details.

This is Penny's design, an atomic sparkle!

The soap bubbles was a joint design, started by Penny and finished and sewn up by me.

Shine is one of my favourites, I loved the contrast between the Oakshott blue and the Denyse Schmidt floral print. 

Penny picked the most perfect fabrics for this brush, the bristles have got so much movement!

Penny's Wash and Go block shows how effective fussy cuts can be in foundation paper pieced blocks.

This retro light was by me- I think it has the wrong name on.  Its a quick straightforward design to sew! A huge thank you to Jen and Alice and the rest of the team at LPQ for such wonderful styling and artwork, they did the best job and exceeding everything we could have imagined for this!

You can find Love Patchwork and Quilting issue 20 in Whsmiths, Supermarkets and large newsagents.  That's Lynne's beautiful Dresden style quilt on the front cover  too!  

Blog Hop: Lion Block from The Paper Pieced Home

You can find my review of Penny Layman's The Paper Pieced Home here. This post is number six on the blog hop for the book.  In the interests of disclosure, Penny sent me a copy of her book and I don't offer even the slightest pretence at a lack of bias. I am totally biased,  Penny is a super talented designer, I am happy to work in partnership with her in Sew-Ichigo and a to call her a friend. Taking all that into consideration, even if I barely knew her, The Paper Pieced Home is amazing and should be in every foundation piecing fan's personal library.  Her designs constantly make me smile and that's what I look for in great design. 

I like simplicity in paper pieced designs.  I don't like over engineered blocks or hyper realistic imagery, instead I look for character, wit and humour.  Paper piecing has a lot of limits- curves and Y seams are tricky to achieve and some details are better added using embroidery or appliqué rather than a tortuous number of seams.  The skill when designing a block is to capture the essence of the item you are trying to represent and construct it as simply as possible: the design is taken to the bare essentials and given a twist or quirk to make you recognise and love it.  Nobody likes a bulky cluster of tiny seams all coming together at one point or five sections where there could be two. The best designs have all their section lines and seams in just the right places, to enhance the design, not detract from it.

I mentioned how much I liked this lion block when I wrote my review so naturally, this was the block I chose for the hop.  All the designs are avaible on a CD included with the book so no need to faff with a photocopier or scanner.  This is a 10 inch block which prints on two sheets joined together. Some of the sections spread on to both sheets with an overlap to join together so I printed out both sheets and traced the design on to velum with a Pigma micron pen so that the main horizontal seam would be evenly spread between both bits of paper and avoid joining sheets of paper.  It worked really well.

After that, the piecing was very straightforward.  There are a lot of sections but the design flows logically and there are only four fabrics involved, and they were all either solids or ditsy prints that worked in any direction.  

There are plenty of tick marks to align the seams and no seam rippers were called for!  The background floral is from Ayumi's Lighthearted collection for Kokka and the orange floral is a vintage 60s fabrics found at a bootsale!  I love the final block.  One of my top tips for paper piecing is to make the block edge seam allowance much bigger than you need so you can trim the block down to the perfect size.  I think I will make it into a sewing machine cover for my Bernina with lots of vintage style prints and some linen, although all the blocks in the 'Playtime' chapter would make a wonderful child's quilt/playmat. 

You can find the book details  below:

The Paper-Pieced Home: Quilting a Household One Block at a Time

By Penny Layman

Interweave/F+W; $26.99

The  publishers also have a copy of the book to giveaway-  a physical copy for a USA winner or a PDF digital version for a winner outside USA.  For a chance of winning, leave a comment below- how about telling me your favourite design era?  1970s, Edwardian?  Whatever it is, let me know!  Make sure I can contact you by email via your profile or comment.  Winner will be chosen by random number generator a week today. 

Enjoy the other stops on the hop!

The Paper-Pieced Home

Blog Tour Schedule

3/16       McCall’s Quilting / Sewing Machine Block

3/17       Love of Quilting / Review

3/17       Sandi Sawa Hazlewood  of Crafty Planner / Watering Can Block

3/18       Quilty Pleasure (Quiltmaker blog) / Review

3/18       Imagine Gnats / Rotary Phone Block

3/20       Verykerryberry / Lion Block

3/21       Artisania / Cast-Iron Skillet Block

3/23       Where the Orchids Grow / Lamp Block

3/24       Katie Blakesley of Swim Bike Quilt / Layer Cake Block

3/24       House on Hill Road / Oven Mitt Block

3/24       Lee Heinrich of Freshly Pieced / BBQ Grill Block

3/26       Pink Penguin / Allie-Gator Block

3/26       A Happy Stitch / Giraffe Block

3/27       Bijou Lovely / Jar Block

3/27       Two Little Banshees / Saucepan Block

3/27       Charise Creates / Espresso Mug Block

3/30       Karen Lewis Textiles / Couch Block

3/31       Poppyprint / Clawfoot Tub Block

3/31       One Shabby Chick / Stack of Books Block

3/31       During Quiet Time / Sleeveless Dress Block

4/06       Pat Sloan The Voice of Quilting / Author Podcast Interview

Ruby Red Strawberries

I received a lovely bundle of Rubies from Oakshott fabrics (with a little help from Lynne). 

 They are shot cottons where the warp and the weft threads are two different colours and in the case of the Rubies, these have the same ruby red warp- you can see them on the left here:

and a range of colours in the weft, from yellow to blue- seen on the right.   Oakshott have a fabulous 

photo of this,  The colours seem more exaggerated here on the bolts but it gives you an idea!

The effect is a collection with depth that shimmers and put me in mind of ripening strawberries.

This is the first summer that I have persuaded Lula to eat strawberries.  It has taken twelve years for her to like them, but now she loves them and we have had a lot, although I don't think there can ever be enough.

You get the idea!  I made six, 6" blocks in all, enough make a curtain ( with a little sashing to space them out) for my skinny kitchen window.

The linen was from an old Habitat curtain picked up at the carboot sale, the white background is Kona snow.  I used various greens but the cute little smiling plates you can see in the strawberry below is a Michael Miller print, 'Any Cup Will Do' from Eternal Maker.  I also used the green brush print from Summersville, a little Suzuko text print, a Lecien dot, a timeless treasures road print and some vintage pin dots,

The strawberry is available as a pattern at Sew-Ichigo and at our Craftsy store and it is an easy one I promise!  If you have done a little paper piecing before you should have no problems with this Penny and I designed our two latest patterns with beginners in mind!  

I have plenty left of Ruby Reds left and whilst going through my fabric drawers I found the perfect match, ruby reds and Farmdale by Alexander Henry.  I plan a quick table runner with these- will report back and share how soon!  Thankyou to Michael and the other folks at Oakshotts, they really are silky beauties!

Best in Show

This block was for Megan in Cocorico bee. Her theme was 'Country Fair'.  I dallied with the idea of pigs but they started to look more like dogs in my sketches so I chose rabbits.  I had to do two, I think of rabbits in multiples, it must be their breeding habits!  And the "Best in Show" idea was rattling around my overcooked imagination from the start.  The sitting rabbit as from 318 Patchwork, Kumiko Fujita-(you know already that it is, of course, out of print).  I played around with that pattern for the standing rabbit and pushed myself to fit a  total of 5 inset Y seams just into that one rabbit- that was fun!  Both bunnies are freezer paper pieced and the ribbon was foundation pieced. The ribbon was adapted from  Carol Doak's free Pink Ribbon pattern.

The tails were needle turn appliqued on with the straight edge sewn into the seam.  The noses and eyes were wool felt cut with a paper hole puncher and hand stitched on.  For the stamping, I always use Versacraft ink.  I like to live life on the edge, the stamping was added at the very end of the block.
Fabrics
Green- Sweet on NYC for Timeless Treasures
Ripple Ribbon-Anna Griffin
Pink large polkas-Lecien
Pink tiny dot-my stash
Yellow prints- Picnics and Fairgrounds, Denyse Schmidt
Aurifil thread for piecing and Superior needles- my new favourite piecing needle, love them!

Happy House, Happy Two Years

So tomorrow is the official date for my second blog birthday, I am jumping a gun the little today but hey, who is going to stop me?  Blogging has bought me such great friendships and opportunities, I could not love it more!  So to celebrate, as many of you guessed, a little house block for anyone who wants to make one!

I made mine as little gifts to a couple of kind people.   The block is 4.5" unfinished, 4"finished, perfect size for lavender bags (as below) or pincushions or a for sewing on a bigger scale to make quilt block houses.

All the pieces are a perfect size for scraps so I went for a mix of vintage and modern and used some of my tiniest pieces.  The tiniest of all was the little ducky- it was an umbrella rather than a noose, no ducks were harmed in the making of this lavender bag.

For both houses  I used the freezer paper template method for piecing and Y seams for the roof chimney area.  The square blocks were rounded off and I added a light woven interfacing to make the blocks suitable for lavender bags.  

Now I know some of you fear the Yseams or prefer to foundation rather than freezer paper piece, so I have a multi option pattern for you.  If you want more details on how to paper piece, check out my paper piecing page for lots of online resources, and if you want to learn the very basics of foundation paper piecing where you stitch through a paper pattern, visit Katy's Foundation Paper Piecing for the Terrified Quilt-a-long

 Click on your choice below for your piecing preference! Both freezer paper pattens could be hand sewn- a great way to learn a Y seam- as well as machine sewn.  And when you have made your creation, please add to my Flickr group so I can see it!  I fancy nine little happy houses sewn together to make the centre of a cushion!

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Freezer Paper {no Y seams} PDF
Freezer Paper {with Y seams} PDF
Foundation Paper PDF

 

Gone Paper Piecing

Amy and I tested each others patterns in preparation for their publication in Fat Quarterly Issue 8 Paper Piecing Issue (available today!).  I smiled so much when I saw her wonderful vintage skate design.  I loved the shaping and I knew just what I was going to make with it. 

This was my friend Kathy's Christmas present.  Kathy grew up in Michigan and skating on the lakes was a regular winter pursuit.  Now this hoop hangs on on a little gallery that I have got going on in there kitchen along with the man mat and a mini teeny tiny pieced mug rug quilt.  What you can't see is the pretty dusky pink Sevenberry flower print on the back- Kathy is not one for flowers but I got some in there, she even confessed to liking it.  And of course she has turned the vintage ribbon round to the back, too fussy for her!  But I know she and the family love it!

I stitched little eyelets from the presets on my machine and threaded a little pearl cotton through for laces.  Amy added cute brads to hers and we both picked the same boot fabric without knowing it!  You can find this pattern plus my teapot block and heaps of other paper pieced blocks and projects in issue 8.  There are 126 jam packed pages!  Not had enough paper piecing?  A new sew a long/ quilt a long is starting, 11 designers (including me) with 11 sewing themed paper pieced blocks combining sewing and words.  I have seen a few previews and am sworn to secrecy but it is seriously good stuff!  Texty fabrics, word play, intrigued? Find out more here and you could be designer for block 12.  Blog posts, giveaways and introductions kick off tomorrow at Joanna's and Julianna's blogs

Candy Cane Love

Today I nervously put my next foundation paper piecing pattern on sale now at Etsy- Candy Cane Love. This is unashamedly Christmassy.  I love red and white, especially at Christmas and the candy cane stood out for me as the pattern I wanted to make for Christmas sewing.  

This pattern is intermediate level- it is a little harder than Winter Woolies which is a beginner level pattern.  There are some very small pieces to make the cane curve and enlarging the blocks would make them easier to work with if you find little bits a challenge. You get a 15 page PDF document to download,  pattern pieces and instructions to make 3 candy cane blocks as well as pattern maps to show how all the pieces fit together, photos, pictures and general paper piecing guidelines and helpful hints. There are two rectangle mirror image canes that can be sewn together to make the candy cane heart in the mini tote bag.  You could also use these separately- I think they would work well in a line of three, maybe on a table runner.  I used my tomato reds to make the canes for the candy cane heart and stamped with versacraft ink in the centre.  I have posted a free tutorial to make the mini tote bag here!

In addition to the two rectangle cane blocks, there is a square cane block.  I used cherry reds for this cane-there is a lot of red in my stash!  Amy has been invaluable in her pattern testing for me for the second time- I owe her big time!  She used one of the rectangle cane blocks for her beautiful Christmas linen stocking here!  The sweetie fabric is the most perfect match.

Now I can draw in photoshop, I made some improvements to my pattern formats.  All the pattern pieces for each cane are on a single page so that you can enlarge them all in one go to make bigger blocks.  The blocks I made up are 6"(square block) and 6.5" (rectangle) tall- finished size.  Photocopying by 200% would produce quilt size blocks of 12" and 13" and there is room around the canes to trim the blocks if required.  I also put in alignment marks to match the sections up- I found this really helpful.  I have put in a cropped pic below so you can see how the marks work.    You can see how the pattern pieces have a little colour too so to help you know which bit is which!  They are pastel shades on the pattern pieces and will print equally well in black and white- that is how I use them, or colour without using all your printing ink up!

This is the square block in a potholder, perfect for all the Christmas cooking.  I 'll post more about this one tomorrow.

I hope you like it!