Mini-Madness Project

March is here and the Island Batik Ambassadors are busy with the next challenge.  This month’s challenge is to make a foundation or English Paper Piecing project that measures 24” x 24” or smaller.  Foundation and English paper piecing are not my strong points in the quilting word.  I have only made two project before with foundation paper piecing. 

After doing a little research with a couple books and YouTube videos, brushing up on my paper piecing skill, I designed a little Star pattern in EQ7.  Which designing a paper piecing project in EQ7 was new to me also. I had played with it a little last April at EQ Academy, so I knew the basics, but I still needed help from my manual and a couple blogs.  So, you can say this was a great challenge project for me again this year.

After I picked out my fabrics and I prepared the paper sections.  I began sewing the first block just to get a handle of the whole project.  I had to remember with paper piecing you are basically sewing reverse (your project will face down all the time).  I completed the first block with no problems.

One thing, I notice that paper piecing can be time consuming with the sewing, trimming and pinning of the next blocks.  But I noticed you can speed up the process of the assembly by using chain piecing. What a great idea.  I had all the blocks sections done in no time. 

Once I had all the blocks made, I began assembling them together, to make the quilt top and added some borders to finish it off.  I used my Janome 7700 to do all the quilting on the quilt top.  This little quilt measured 19 ½” x 19 ½” finished.

It was a fun challenge this month.  I have learned a lot about paper piecing with this project.  I want to do more this year, I plan to take maybe a few Craftsy class on the subject if time allows.

Do you like paper piecing?  If so, comment below with your favorite tip.

Make sure you check out the other Island Batik Ambassadors projects throughout the coming weeks.

Tina