Johanna Fritz

I posted the paper pieced quilt Southwest Star recently. Today I played in EQ7 a little. Instead of designing with the whole block, I used one quarter of the block. The star is basically round with points = symmetrical or even. One fourth of the block is a quarter of a circle in the lower right with points in the upper left = asymmetrical or uneven. These asymmetrical blocks are fun to design with in EQ7 with the "Block Serendipity" tool. I am attaching a few variations and the PP units. These are the same foundations: [1] right reading and [1] reverse make one quarter of the block that finishes at 12". The foundations are 6" finished.

Some of you commented or e mailed me about wanting to learn to paper piece. Carol Doak is the grand Dame of PP. She has an excellent class at Craftsy online. It is on sale for the next day or two. $20. (I am not affiliated with Craftsy - I have just taken 45 of their classes - many are free). It is a great platform. You can ask questions, post projects and the instructor and/or students can help along the way if needed. If you have ANY interest in paper piecing, I would check it out ASAP.

TIP: for those of you who have said that they want to paper piece but cannot stand to pick out the paper, you have many options, and I will give you my tip. There IS special, thinner paper and paper that vanishes after soaking in water, but here is what I do that works great:

When you are sitting in front of the TV at night, take your foundations and put one on your lap on a book. Using your fingernails or a credit card etc, fold all AND crease on each line - open - and fold and crease the other way. It sounds time consuming. I did enough for one queen size quilt in one night. When you are ready to paper piece, you do not have to flip over to see the lines to line up seam allowance etc because you can see all the fold lines. I use regular #20 copy paper

It also makes them tear very easily - that - and your small (1.5) seam length. When you are all done, grab a section of the quilt and hold on to the diagonal ends of a block and "pop" it - most of the paper will pop out loosen with this quick pop on the bias of each block. Try a Square in a Square block to try the pre-creasing and block popping...

Enough chat, here are the other Southwest Star variations using the quarter block to design. If you have EQ7, I am happy to share the project file for this. I made some extra blocks and quilts. It has a .PJ7 extension. If you do not own EQ7 it will not work.

Enjoy and all comments/suggestions are great.

KyStitcher

THANKS! Love this one, can't wait 'til I can find some time to try it. P piecing is great for me 'cause I have trouble sewing a straight line without something to guide me for accuracy. Beautiful colors.

KyStitcher

And your method of prefolding on the lines of the pattern pieces before starting to sew is the same thing I have found to work wonderfully well along with the small stitch length. For anybody out there wanting to learn paper piecing, don't shy away because it looks complex. Just take Johanna's advice, it really will give you great results

Snooze2978

Johanna would love your file for EQ7 on the Southwestern Star. I have a few of Carol Doak's books as well and since trying my first paper pieced project, I've fallen in love with paper piecing. Thanks again. You may send to my [email protected] or contact me here.

Thanks a bunch for all this work you did and now so generously giving to others.

dotcomdtcm

Amy Gibson from Craftsy.com suggests perforating the lines by machine. w an unthreaded sewing needle.
It takes a little time but makes paper removal a snap. You can get her Oct BOM online for free for a good tutorial.

tessagin

Love the variations!

Johanna Fritz

I found that for me, the creasing and sewing with shorter stitch length helps the paper come out just fine. I did that once and found for me, it takes way too time, with the same results. I know some who do the sewing, but once they pre-crease (in both directions) they find it works just as well. Of course, there are many ways to do it. :0)

lynnie

I love the swirling star. I still can't do pping

Clueless Quilter

The quilts are fabulous.

I love paper piecing and was lucky enough to take a class with Carol Doak many years ago (1996) when paper piecing was still fairly new to the quilt scene. She was a lot of fun and a great teacher.

I would love to accept your generous offer for a copy of your EQ7 project file. Just sent you a pm. Thank you so very much.

maviskw

So, after you have pre-folded all the lines all across the paper (I use the tip of the seam ripper to lightly mark the line so I get a nice clean fold), glue piece number one in place, fold back and add piece number two to the seam line, and do not fold the paper back. Leave it folded and sew right next to that fold. Fold back the paper for piece three, add the piece and sew next to the paper fold. No paper to tear away, and that paper can be re-used mulitple times. My friend made 20 blocks with the same piece of paper.