Paper Piecing Tutorial

This is for you, Dianne!  :)

Here is why paper piecing is so nice!  Take a look at these two sections of my "Birthday Block" Quilt Guild quilt.

The quilt pattern I am using for "sashing" would need 80 long skinny rectangles where you have to cut off the corners at a 45 degree angle and sew on a 2.5 inch triangle.  Later you will sew two of these sections (as in the top half of the picture) together to form a sort of squished hexagon,  You hope your triangles aren't gonna turn out too small or lopsided, and you hope the points don't get squared off when you sew them to the blocks.  You COULD make larger triangles, but then you'd have the extra step of squaring the strips ( x 80!)

OR!

You can make a paper piece pattern (which is what I did), and combine the two strips into one piece with 4 corners.  Your paper piece will give you PERFECT points, with PERFECT quarter inch seam allowances AND you only need 40 of them.  And there's not a seam down the center of the white.  I think it's a no-brainer!  No wonder I love paper piecing!  Down at the bottom of this tutorial, you will see my quilt-in-progress using these paper pieced "blocks" as the sashing.  It looks good too!

So, let's start.  Here is the paper piece pattern that I designed to make life easier for me.  It is 4.5 x 10.5 and will finish to 4 x 10.  You will need to make one paper pattern for every block.  I copied off 40 of them.

Here is what I need.  40 pattern papers, 40 large (white) rectangles, 160 triangles, and a postcard.  The "postcard" can be any cardstock weight paper.  A birthday card, a cereal box, etc.  A rotary cutter too, of course, and a cutting mat, and pins, and a sewing machine.  Your fabric will need to be at least a quarter inch larger than the section it will cover.  In paper piecing, larger is better.  The directions (for the strips) said to use a 2.5 inch square, cut diagonally in half.  I used a  3.25" square cut in half.  Better to have some "wiggle room" in paper piecing!  My white "squished hexagon" needed to be at least 10.5 x 4.5. (including the corners).   I cut my white fabric rectangles into 5.25 x 11.25" rectangles.

Sew the sections in order.

All paper piecing patterns are numbered to show you the order in which to add the pieces.  This is very important because each new piece added covers and sews over seam allowances and raw edges of the previous pieces.  If you do the pieces out of order, it'll be a mess!  Sometimes, if 2 pieces don't over lap, the order is not as important.  In my simple pattern, the diagonal corners don't overlap, so it doesn't matter which you do first.  In fact, since NONE of them overlap, you could do any corner at any time for this pattern.  Generally though, follow the numbers, and sew in order.  In my pattern, the #1 piece MUST be added first.  Since it is so large, and since I made my fabric rectangle larger than the paper, I just put the fabric on the mat and the paper on top of it.  The important thing to remember is that the BACK OF THE FABRIC GOES AGAINST THE BACK OF THE PAPER.  For the FIRST PIECE ONLY, when you hold the paper against the fabric, you should have the pattern showing on one side, and the pretty side of the fabric showing on the other.  After that, ALL other pieces will go "right sides together" when added.

Pins keep the fabric from shifting.

Because this is a larger piece, I add pins to help hold it.  After I sew a couple of lines, I can remove the pins.  The flat headed "flower pins" (yes, that is what they are really called!) are nice for this because you can put a postcard or ruler over them and everything still lies nice and flat.





Alright!  Ready to make the first cut?  First we need to cut off the white corners so we can add the orange ones.  Place your postcard against the line between sections 1 and 2.  (I did not number my sections, just choose any corner!)  Fold the paper over the postcard.

Now, put the quarter inch line of your ruler on the fold.  That quarter inch is the seam allowance you will need for your next piece.  Cut off the white corner along the edge of your ruler.

Next, flip your pattern piece to the back side.  Take your next piece and align the raw edges together and you are ready to sew!  As usual, be sure that your fabrics are RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER.

  

You can pin the new piece if it is large, or just hold it in place to sew it.  Flip the piece so that you can see the pattern, and sew on the line between the 2 pieces of fabric, starting and stopping a few stitches from the sewing line.  You will sew over these stitches later with another piece or block to secure them.  

 

For paper piecing, you will want to use a very small stitch.  This is so the paper is perforated so that it can be removed easily.  If you are sewing a piece with lots of seams really close together, or you want to be sure things are aligned well before you sew, you can sew with a very large stitch to sort of baste it in place first. If it looks ok, then re-sew with the small stitches.  You want to get it right the first time if possible because those little stitches are hard to rip out. Here is an example of "normal" quilt stitches, and the tinier "paper piecing" stitches.

After sewing, check to make sure all the area you wanted to cover IS actually covered!  You can hold your piece up to a light, or a window to see through the paper and see where your fabric is on the other side. Sometimes the fabric might shift as you sew and you end up with a part not covered.  If it's in the seam allowance, I usually leave it if  the space uncovered is less than an eighth of an inch.  If it's more than that, or if it's part of the actual block that is not covered, sadly, you should rip it out and re-sew.

This corner is completely covered.

 If all is well, iron the seam.

You can now repeat this process for each of the other pieces: 

1.  Postcard on the line

2.  Fold paper over the postcard.

3.  Put ruler with quarter inch line on the fold.

4.  Cut with rotary cutter along edge of ruler.

5.  Flip over, align raw edge of next piece to raw edge of previous (just cut) piece, right sides together .

6.  (Pin if necessary.) Sew.

7.  Check against the light.

8. Iron

 

When all the new pieces have been added, flip the block over to the front side (side with the pattern) to trim it to size.  DON'T CUT OFF THE SEAM ALLOWANCE!!  (I have done this and it renders the block useless!)

All done!

  Here's how they look so far in my quilt:

I hope I didn't confuse you!  I wanted to show you the PROCESS.  Here are links to a couple of other tutorials that might help too.

Tutorial 1

The girl in this short (9 min) video sews first and then trims.  Paper piecing can be done either way.  Trim first (as I do) then sew, or sew first, then trim.  Actually I do it both ways in more complicated blocks.

For a longer (38 min), more comprehensive tutorial, try this one:

Tutorial 2

It shows how to make a fairly complicated block.