Hi everyone,
Today the spotlight will be on Rosemary and her wonderful English Paper Piecing…
Dear Jeanne, You can post these any time you feel up to it, no hurry.
I am done with English Paper Piecing. I love it but not so much hand sewing and literally fighting with twisty thread. Each single block measures 7.5 inches with seams.
Imagine some people make huge king size quilts like this. Not me. all of this hand sewing actually made my fingers kind of sore.
All done, 9 blocks! This was not easy sewing for me.
This is the back, see all of the paper pieces. The punched hole in the middle is my invention but I am sure others do it. I just need a hole to pop the papers out when done.
Many of the seam meet ups looked like this.
Any time more than 4 seams meet together, in this case many seams collected together with 8 points. Oh there is a special way (you know “twirling” them in the same direction all around) to make these seams look neat and tidy, and I really did try…
7 1/2 inch test block (I will make something with it)
A close up of all of the papers and seams
It measures at 22″, some of the seams are still folded in on the paper
I will give it a good pressing
This morning, all of the papers removed….
let’s do some math here: 8 for each star 72 diamond papers
and the half squares 12 for each block so 12 x 9 is uhmmmm 108!!!
Now I will press this and hang it up ready to be moved
with my other works in progress. Thank you Jeanne for letting me share
this tedious hand sewing project
WOW! Rosemary that is just gorgeous! I absolutely LOVE the colors of your blocks… but I can see how really tedious this would be. I bet you’ll be glad to get back to packing after doing this. Packing up books and figurines and teacups will be a joy now, won’t it?
Thank you SO much for sharing this project of yours with us. You should finish this and hang it up and then place it some place special in your new house with a note under it saying, the last project in my old house! :o( :o)
Thanks again,
Blessings, Jeanne
I am impressed, Rosemary. Those diamonds aren’t easy to sew, even on the machine; EPP would be all the more difficult.
My EPP project is all hexagons, and they are all sewn together now, and the basic clutch is finished, just waiting to be sewn into the frame! I did take a few pictures along the way, too, so when I finally finish it, I will send pictures to Jeanne, too.
I love the blue you chose for the background; it sets off the blocks nicely.
I enjoyed the hand sewing on mine, but I don’t know that I will make another project that way, as it was, as you said, rather tedious. It did take me a while to get the “feel” of it, as sewing the pieces together is a little different from hand sewing a hem, for instance.
Barbara, in thinking about your sewing for your Sylvia Natterer dolls, since the patterns don’t already have seam allowances, my thought would be to trace them onto template plastic, which is see-thru (or onto paper which you then glue to cardboard), cut them out, and then trace around them with removable pen or whatever method works best, then cut them out, “eyeballing” the 1/4″ seam allowances. Stitch on the traced lines.