Friday, August 22, 2014

English Paper Piecing Revisited

I last wrote about this (very long term) English paper piecing project three years ago.  I can't believe it's been that long since I worked on it, but that's what the blog record  says.  I'd forgotten how fun it is to fussy cut scraps for the shapes.  I played around with the various effects you can get from fussy cutting stripes, dots, and other motifs on your fabric. You can see lots of individual pictures of the stars in my instagram feed.
I am still using the paper shapes from Paperpieces and the Sewline glue pen.  Making the jewel stars is relatively quick (I mean, this is hand sewing after all). I can make one, start to finish, including the fussy cutting, while waiting through one gymnastics class (about 45 minutes).  It's nice to have a portable sewing project, especially with so many sports practices these days.
Now that I have about ten stars made, I'm working on joining them to the low volume background fabrics and sewing them onto the group I made a few years ago.  This step is slow going and a bit of a puzzle.
Hopefully it won't be another three years before I have more to show you on this project.

4 comments:

Marg said...

I've been following your progress on Instagram of the latest jewelstars and love love them. I cant believe its that long ago that you started them! I still haven't finished my quilt that I started all that time ago, but I'm kind of on the home stretch (ha) and have started hand quilting it. Im looking forward to seeing your progress, it's making me want to start another EPP project now!

Kristy said...

I had an EPP project I started as a teenager and never finished...although it survived 3 moves; so I applaud your progress.

Anonymous said...

I'm yet to try English Paper Piecing, but I imagine if I ever did, that it would take me at least 3 years to make something from it :)

It's nice to have something to do while the kids are having classes - I currently have knitting needles and a small ball of wool in my handbag for the same reason :)

Paige said...

Your fussy cutting is perfect. Would love to know how you go about it. Thanks for sharing your progress.