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Free Tutorial - English Paper Piecing
Handwork is Restful and Compulsive...
This has been my evening project this winter...
Gothy Nova - this will be a table cloth for my dining room when quilted
Oh, dear, these have been breeding. This is my basket full so far, and it's rather a deep basket. There again, my scrap basket is a very small amount thinner...
Start with papers. I usually punch my own hexagons using these Fiskars punches - almost always from second-hand papers and very thin card - note how the pieces are measured - a 1-inch hexagon is bigger than 1 inch overall. You can also get free downloadable and printable patterns in lots of places online, but you need a steady hand with the scissors.
For all other shapes (see further down) I tend to buy the little pieces ready cut - Lina Patchworks are good in the UK; for the US try Paperpieces.com - these are good value and perfectly accurate which is ever-so-important...
Start with one paper and a scrap of fabric - here I'm working from leftover 2-1/2 inch strips (binding offcuts!) - pin the paper on and trim to about 1/4 - 3/8 inch all round (this is not at all crucial, and the great thing about EPP is you really don't have to use rotary cutters and the papers automatically make the pieces accurate)
Thread your needle and tie a knot. Fold the first corner over like so and stitch, catching the fold, through to the front. Turn the template one-corners-worth and fold the fabric again, stitch the fold down by coming up next to it and down holding the pleat, and keep rotating and stitching till you get to the last one..
Shown back and front
When you have gone all the way round, finish with a single back-stitch and cut the thread - note that it makes it very easy to remove the tackings if your thread has a good contrast here. Old and slightly fragile thread is usable for this, I often use up oddments from bobbins
Shown back and front
Another school of thought likes the idea that the tackings can or should be left in, and to do this you need to sew only through the folds of the fabric and not through the papers - the folding and turning is similar, but take a little back-stitch through each fabric fold each time and two stitches to fasten off. In this case use a neutral or matching thread. This is OK if you really want to leave the papers in, or if you want to avoid taking the tackings out. I don't, as I find the sewing much more laborious and find that I can re-use papers with holes in a good many times...
Yet another school of thought likes to glue. I don't for many reasons - good glue is messy and expensive. Cheap glue is messy and unreliable; neither is guaranteed to come off if left for a while or to stay stuck. You need to wash the quilt as soon as it's made and the sewing-machine may dislike the stiffness.
And, messy, did I say messy?
However, it's your patchwork and I personally will never criticise your methods...
Whatever works for you, darling...
NOTE - any odd shape, as with narrow corners or curves, or bigger than 1-inch per side should always be tacked through the papers as otherwise they will not be secure enough.
Sewing the bits together. Arrange your hexagons or whatever to please your eye, and pick up two pieces which are next to each other - I started here with a middle and a side piece from the rosette. Put these face to face and aligned nicely. Thread your needle and, starting on a corner, over-sew along the edges, just picking up a couple of threads from each side and not sewing through the papers.
When you get to the next corner, pick up another piece, and check which way round it goes. Keep on sewing. When you reach the next corner, back-stitch and cut the thread.
You will need to fold the hexagon that is between the next two in order to get the edges to meet.. Sew, sew, quick, quick, sew..
Keep on going till you have finished your rosette, then you can take the middle paper out (and re-use it)...
Now, here I have sewn together some hexagons into a rosette, usually called "Grandmothers Flower Garden" setting.
And the other piece has two sorts of diamonds, shallow and deeper, and pentagons (much as you might wish to you cannot "tile" pentagons on a flat surface)
These are from the centres of my Millefiori Quilt rosettes, and I suggest you Google "Millefiori quilts" and "Willyne Hammerstein" but not till you have a good couple of hours, a comfy chair, and a drink in hand...
Note that I have removed the tackings and the papers from the Millefiori apart from at the edges; this makes the work easier to handle as you go along. Papers can be re-used lots of times.
Also, I have "fussy-cut" the blue and white pieces in the hexies, to make the pattern join into a circle - this is great fun, but you need lots of fabric to do this really well. Of course, as the papers stabilise the fabrics, you need not worry about which way the grain runs.
Papers (unless you have a good reason, maybe for 3D work) should always be removed before quilting, as, if left in, they will wear through the fabrics and escape later.
There are lots and lots and lots of different arrangements. This is as obsessive-compulsive a game as anything in patchwork...
Both types from the back - the printed hexies were free with a magazine. All the hexagon samples above and this hexie one are made on 1-inch hexagons as this is my favourite size..
You don't have to make thousands, a few make a lovely motif on a small project - these Japanese blue-and-white prints will decorate a Kinchaku Bag
Like this one...
Other shapes - these are the two diamonds and the pentagons from the right-hand sample above - the very narrow diamonds need careful folding to make the edges tidy, and these and the 72 degree (5 to a circle) diamonds have "ears" which overlap the edges - just fold these out of the way when sewing the pieces together and they will lie flat on the back. The pentagons, like the hexagons, have shallow corners and are neater...
CLICK HERE to go to another page with further, and more radical ideas, and a free pattern or two...
4, The Raveningham Centre, Beccles Road, Raveningham, Norfolk, NR14 6NU. United Kingdom