Why can’t i wrap my head around paper piecing. . ?
After placing the fabric, checking the position, checking again. . .
And yes again. . .I successfully sew. . .
and then cut the wrong side of the seam. . .UGH!
I almost gave up, after all I ruined some precious pieces of Kitty Yoshida Urban Oasis. . .but after nixing the idea below as ‘mheh’ for the #schnitzelandboominiquiltswap
and then seeing this by MsMidge Paper Piecing and I knew I had to make that butterfly!
It’s called Garden Party by Monkey Beans.
Although I must admit I was very close to sending my little butterfly with the paper attached 😉 I finished the little guy and then as a true gluten for punishment does – I made another one 😉
I decided to use some of the new skills I’ve learnt over the past year. . .
and came up with my partner’s request for something “clean, simple and pretty”. . .I hope it meets her expectations. Â My swap partner is kinda good at all this quilty stuff. . .’kinda good’ being a true understatement!
I cant tell you who she is, I’ll provide the link to her blog once she gets her package. . .I’m kinda nervous and excited all rolled into one – you know I couldn’t send the package without a little hooky goodness:
I have a WIP update post coming Wednesday, I may even try the whole linky thing again – but then that is in the hands of the Nippers. . .aka my mini bosses. . .good thing they’re cute!
lalinsocal 
You’ve done a wonderful job. The butterflies are super.
Thanks Lucie! It was fun to see it evolve with each new piece of fabric.
It has turned out beautifully!
Something I find makes paper piecing a bit easier is using freezer-paper templates. I have one bit of thin paper, as usual, to sew onto, and another tracing of the pattern on freezer paper, which I number, mark on the grain and then cut up into individual bits. I use the bits to cut out the fabric (with generous buffers all around). It sounds like extra work, but so is unpicking the stuff-ups, and I make far fewer this way. I think I got this idea from the Pink Penguin or Sew Take a Hike blogs.
That’s a really cool idea, eliminate one of the potential mistakes by ensuring the correct size and shape of fabric and that should help me see the seam line correctly – might even save me some fabric too, eh? Thx! 🙂
I checked, and the tutorial I found so helpful was on Sew Ichigo’s blog. You are right: it does save fabric.
http://sew-ichigo.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/paper-piecing-diagonals-using-freezer.html
Awesome, thx just checked it out and yes I think this’ll make it a lot easier!
How precious! You did a great job paper piecing
Thx Carla, it really is cool how crisp and clean a paper pieced pattern turns out.
It took me some time to get my head around the whole placement of the fabric as well. I Pinned a lot at the beginning before sewing lol and had a special relationship with my seamripper. The paper removal part is always the first of it all, especially since I just use normal printer paper, so the stitch length really is a huge difference there.
And I wished I had seen this video by Elison Lane Quilts before I actually learned paper-piecing. It would’ve made it so much easier, so maybe this will help you, too 🙂
http://ellisonlane.com/2013/08/beginningpaperpiecing.html
Your butterflies are gorgeous by the way and the mini quilt, too! Love!
thx Lia! I’m checking out that video right now 🙂