Every quilter has their kryptonite. That one skill that, despite repeated practice, just never seems to gel. Me? My weak spot has always been paper piecing. Luckily, my good friend Violet Craft is basically the paper-piecing queen of the universe, and she agreed to join me in the studio for some easy-to-follow paper-piecing instruction.
Join me as I conquer my fear of paper piecing, and together we’ll learn how to make something awesome! Click on the button below to watch the tutorial!
Love this! I recently took a class at a local quilt shop on the Jungle Abstractions (I chose the Lion) for my first foray into paper piecing. Violet Craft’s pattern pieces have been pretty easy to work with and figure out but this tutorial sure helped me learn more than what the instructor had taught. One thing she did recommend that was different from Violet’s approach, was to pre-fold all the lines for the entire pattern piece instead of doing them one at a time as the seam was being worked on. Also, I have found that using a bit of glue stick on the really large pieces is helpful to keep the far corner (away from the seam) in place. This way, I’ve gotten less flopping around and shifting of the fabric after the final trim, which inevitably has ended up with the fabric shifting when joining the individual “blocks.” This tutorial was a great intro into paper piecing and for me, the timing was perfect! See my Lion in process – he’s going to be really cool!
Beautiful Cindy! I LOVE your fabrics. I too use something to hold those large pieces of fabric in place. I use a temporary tape roller. It goes on so easy, is repositionable and never leaves residue on the fabric. My favorite is Duck brand. I’m so happy you liked our video!
~ Violet
Thanks! I’ll definitely look for the Duck brand tape roller as that’s a great idea as well. After having to pick out far too many seams (mostly user error and newbie mistakes) I want to do anything I can to avoid any more! My fabrics are mostly batiks but there’s a couple Stonehenge as well. I don’t know why, but my brain immediately said to do the Lion in the blue/green/purple color way. So I did!