It has been a very frustrating morning for me with hiccups in my commute to get my kids to school. Not the greatest way to start my day. However, I am very happy and excited about the progress I’ve made with last month’s BOM so I will focus on those accomplishments and not wallow in my own frustrations.
I mentioned last week about being nervous because this block utilizes foundation/paper piecing. Thankfully, Christy’s tutorial was extremely well done so I finally understood each step and I was able to get most of the block done this week. Yay!
I will admit that I had most of this post written and I went back and re-read it and it was so boring. I seem to have gotten into a rut where I just walk you through all of the different steps I took in the process, which isn’t that fun to read. My solution was to delete it all and start from scratch.
In the event that you’ve never heard of foundation/paper piecing before I hope I can explain it in a way you’ll understand. Basically, you have either a piece of foundation material or light weight paper that has a sewing template printed on it. You then proceed to glue baste or pin the material to the wrong side of the foundation and then flip it over and sew on the right side of the foundation, following the printed lines. You have to sew, trim, then add another section of the pattern and repeat.
It sounds more complicated than it is once you finally get into it and start doing it. The perks to using foundation as opposed to paper is the fact that you can leave the foundation on the finished product where as with paper you have to rip it out before you can quilt it.
For this block I used light weight foundation so I could leave it in. I’m still not finished with the entire block, but I was able to finish the four separate quadrants of the block. The final step will be to join them all together.
In order to stay organized I kept each piece of fabric that I had cut out in a pile with the template used for that stack placed on top. It got a little chaotic, but it was structured chaos.
The finished quadrants look fantastic if I do say so myself. I can’t wait to see how they look once they’re all joined together. It turns out I actually really like foundation/paper piecing. I didn’t think I would. At the very least I thought I would enjoy the finished product but not like the steps I had to take to get there. It turns out I actually liked the process all the way from the beginning to the end.
Does anyone else out there enjoy foundation/paper piecing? The precision it allows is pretty fantastic and I like being able to use templates to cut rather than cutting out strips and then sub cutting from there. I feel like there is less margin for error with foundation/paper piecing. Does anyone else feel that way or is it just me?
Next week I will finish assembling this block, work on the small accent block from last month, and then start on some sashing for the quilt. If I manage to finish all of that I think I will start on the BOM for May. I would love to get back on schedule and not feel like I’m constantly playing catch up.
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