Cottage Quilt Designs

Happy New Year!

As promised in December here is a lesson on how to paper piece. I’m making Jacqueline de Jonge’s quilt Be Colourful for a client.

Last time I was working on the first Block section-here it is-finished just before Christmas.

Now I’m going to show you how to paper piece with Block B. I use Golden Thread’s yellow tracing paper for tracing the sections from the pattern. Jacqueline arranged with the printer to print the whole quilt on one large sheet of paper.  It can be imtimidating but just focus on one block at a time. She does a wonderful job breaking it into sections in her instructions.

Here is a curved section showing the traced paper with all but one section added. Each fabric patch is bigger by at least 1/4″ all around the patch before you add it  and the whole section is trimmed back to the seam allowance when finished.

The first step in adding the last patch is to fold back the paper on the joining seam line and trim the fabric from the last section to 1/4″ above the folded paper.

The next fabric patch is placed right sides together along the trimmed edge of the sewn patch below. You will need to flip the top patch back to see if it will cover beyond the seam allowance on the next traced paper section.

Here you see the two sections sewn together on the line. The seams are always sewn on top of the paper with the fabric sandwich on top of the feed dogs of your machine.

The last section has been folded open and pressed and trimmed back to the seam allowances.

Here are all the sections (minus the star in the circle) before sewing together.

And here is Block A and B sewn together. Now on to Block C!