love 2 sew

In your opinion, which paper piecing designer writes the best directions? I love Judy Niemeyer but I find her directions a bit confusing. I don't want to have to take a class on all her designs just to do them. I haven't tried any others and that's why I'm asking you. I hope this question is ok for this forum.
Joan

Lori S

In my opinion, Carol Doak has the best paper piecing instructions.

DianneK

Carol Doak is the best..and she was lots of free patterns on her website. She did a class for our quilt guild, and although I have been paper piecing for several years, I took the class and really enjoyed it

ckcowl

Carol Doak...every time

judy363905

I began with Carol Doak and she is still my go to designer

Judy in Phx, AZ

nativetexan

I took a class with Neimeyer's pattern and i have yet to finish it. still, i love her quilts.

dunster

I love Judy Niemeyer's designs, but I agree that her directions are not that good. Every time I make one of her quilt I spend a lot of time up front figuring out which fabric corresponds to which part of the quilt so I can decide what fabrics to use. On the last one, her directions called for 5 or 6 different dark fabrics, but in the picture of the quilt on the pattern she used only one. The quilt looked great with the one fabric (which was mottled) in place of all the others, but the directions suffered because of it.

I believe that you only need to learn paper piecing once, and Carol Doak is apparently the best one to teach that. (I didn't learn from her books - I took a class at a LQS.) After that, you just need to have the papers (marked with the order and fabrics to use for piecing), clear description of the fabric quantities (and where they go), and instructions that tell you what size pieces to efficiently cut from each fabric, and how those the paper pieced units go together. It frustrates me when a pattern gives you piece by piece instructions. Still, I think Judy Niemeyer's patterns are gorgeous and I will continue to make them, grumbling every time the instructions regarding fabric placement are muddled.

Deb watkins

And the WINNER IS........Carol Doak by a landslide!! hahaha

jcrow

Carol Doak is by far the best. I can get confused sometimes by directions, but she is awesome. Never have been confused once by her directions!

Milli

Carol Doak