bearisgray

Do any of you do hand piecing?

I still do once in a while. Especially for a complex block that I have no idea for how to press it after it is completed.

I backstitch every three to four stitches. I have found the stitching to be surprisingly hard to remove when it is basically just a short running stitch.

feline fanatic

I love handwork but have never done hand piecing. I always have a handwork WIP going. I have done hand applique, hand embroidery, including sashiko, EPP, finished binding by hand and hand quilting but I have never tried my hand at traditional hand piecing. I would like to though. Winding ways is on my bucket list and I may do that as my first foray into hand piecing. The thought of marking all those pieces with my 1/4" seam is what deters me. I am terrible at eyeballing it so would need to mark my seam line. Have considered ordering the inklingo package so I can run it through my printer.

ckcowl

I do enjoy hand Piecing. I machine stitch most of the time, but I always have a hand project to take with me where ever I go. If I have wait time, or break time I can sit and stitch. It is amazing how much you can get done in 10-15 minutes sometimes

IrishgalfromNJ

I've only done hand piecing with EPP.

liking quilting

One time, there was a video on the web of an Asian lady who could piece by hand faster than most people sew with a machine. (I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't seen it). She pieced intricate, small pieces into beautiful quilts.I admire hand piecing and hand quilting, but don't aspire to do it. ha ha. Love my motorized machines!

Doggramma

I used to hand piece when I started quilting because I was terrible at machine piecing. But now I mostly just do hand applique or EPP.

bearisgray

I would make two templates for each shape - one for the cutting line and one to trace around. I can't eyeball that line, either.

Patricia Drew

We had a 72-hour power outage 2 weeks ago, and I did some hand-piecing. I had forgotten how much I enjoy it. Of course, it's quite time consuming, but in the circumstances, it was relaxing!

I have to admit however that as soon as the power came back, I was back to machine-piecing!

Peckish

Sounds like you might be talking about Yoko Saito. I was fortunate enough to take a class from her in Houston last year, it was fabulous. She was very patient and demonstrated her techniques over and over again for us. She also had an assistant who was equally skilled and patient. My entire trip to Houston was worth it for that class alone!

Another wonderfully skilled hand-piecer is Jinny Beyer.

I like to hand-piece in the evenings while watching tv with Mr. Peckish, and I love to take hand-piecing projects to work on when I tag along on his business trips.

SophieHatter

I am possibly a) mad, b) slapdash, and c) patient, but I find hand sewing very relaxing and machine sewing very stressful, and I can't be doing with all those bits of paper. So I just make a pair of templates - a bigger one to cut round and a smaller one to sew round - or one doughnut shaped one for both, out of some very solid cardboard using a stanly knife or some very sharp scissors to cut it out straight. Then I iron the fabric and lay it nice and flat-but-relaxed on the table, and draw the shapes directly onto the back of the fabric with a softish art pencil, taking care to keep it at a consistent angle rather than digging into the cardboard or the fabric. I cut out my shapes, then just sew backstitch along the lines! I pin the pieces in place as I go along, so adding the patches as I get to them when I am sewing, poking the pins through the corners carefully first and pointing these diagonally outwards so they don't slide, then putting a couple of pins in straight along the line that I am about to sew. I made a hexagonal quilt for my Gran that way, and it worked beautifully. It's kinda wonky if you actually get your ruler and protractor out, but that's part of the charm and it doesn't show! I've just finished sewing the front of a standard square patchwork quilt that way, I've yet to quilt it but it looks good so far.

Probably not your normal recommended style of expert quilting, but it keeps me happy!
And because there's no sewing machine to lug around and no clickety noise, and I can control it with my fingertips without consciously concentrating, I can sew on the train, while listening to podcasts, in the garden, on holiday, while chatting to talkative relatives... so it's not like the extra time it takes is wasted!