This post is especially for my daughter who needs to learn how to do this! How do you sew that circle into that square with a hole in it?! This might look complicated, but it's not if you just take it step by step.
When you do circles (or curves), there should be templates with your pattern. On those templates, there are usually marks that you need to transfer to your fabrics. It's important to do this, so you can get the spacing for aligning and attaching your pieces.
If there are no marks, you would simply make a a mark on your fabrics at the half, quarter, and maybe eighth (if it's a big piece) of the way around your curve. You would fold your piece in half, make a pencil mark to mark the point, then fold in half again for the quarter point, make your pencil mark, etc. You would do this with both the circle, and the frame pieces. Then you will be matching up those marks for pinning, and then sew.
My templates had marks already on them, and I did ransfer those marks onto the fabrics. I used a Frixion pen (your marks iron right off!) for the lighter fabrics, and a gray chalk pencil for the darker fabrics.
To sew the circle into the hole, remember, RIGHTS SIDES TOETHER! It seems too basic to state, but logic says, put the circle on top of the hole, and somehow sew it there! It seems counter-intuitive to do it properly, but it needs to be that way, right sides together.
Start by spreading out the frame. Match a mark from the frame to a mark on the circle. (If orientation is important to your finished circle, make sure you match your marks accordingly.) I want a certain color spike in the corner, so I will start there. Match the marks, align the raw edges, pin.
Move to the next mark, and do the same. Match, align, pin. Do not worry about aligning all the fabric all the way around just yet (see that yellow fabric sticking out in the picture below?) You will align that little bit as you sew. For now, just make sure your pins have the two raw edges aligned. You can add more pins later if you feel the need.
Continue going around the circle, matching your marks, aligning raw edges, and pinning the points.
I thought this needed more pins, so I added an extra pin between the marks to help hold it:
front of circle back of circle
Because I have really skinny points on these spikes, I am going to sew on the back of the circle so I can see where the tops of the points are. Also, all of the paper pieced spikes have the seams going in the same way, and I want to cross those thick seams in the same direction. You will want to sew slowly and as smoothly as possible, trying to follow the curve of the circle at the quarter-inch mark. You can't see if puckers are forming on the backside, but you can feel your fabric as you sew, and often can feel if he fabric gets thicker. Also, you can watch for "folds". You can lift the fabric with the needle down to see if it is clear sailing ahead, or if you might have to smooth it out under there. I did this often, every couple of inches. If you see a fold, or a potential fold, stop sewing, and try to smooth it out before you sew over it. This is a slow process, but take way less time then having to pick out a pucker. When you finish sewing all around, check both sides for puckers.
As careful as I was, I still had one tiny pucker. I picked out a few stitches and resewed.
Press your seam carefully. Press, don't iron. Press means iron goes up and down, not sliding sideways. Ironing can stretch fabrics slightly, distorting it somewhat and this is especially true if there are bias edges. Circles have 100% bias edges, so you don't want to stretch it out of round. This would be easy to do with all those bias edges! Also, do not use steam or spray starch. Either could cause some shrinkage, which results in wrinkles or little "waves" in the fabric.
Here is the finished result:
I hope this was helpful !
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