Humperdinck! Humperdinck! Humperdinck!"
Yes I just watched The Princess Bride again. I love that movie. So many priceless lines that are applicable in everyday conversations.... such as "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." and "You mean you wish to surrender to me? Very well, I accept"
Anyway, my venture into Princess Bride was spawned by a desire to see how much work I could get done in a specified period of time and a movie is the perfect timer. The trick you see, is to not get distracted by all the projects I want to do but haven't started yet, or to get distracted by all the new and cool projects (like this great Quilt of Valor idea I have, or the English Paper Piecing method I want to get set up to take to Rag with me) that are out there, but instead focus on sewing for an hour and a half. Its tough being chronically creative.
So what did I accomplish in an hour and half? Not quite as much as I would have liked.
Let me first start by saying that this paper-piecing project turned out to be a little trickier that I initially anticipated. I think it has to do with some of the odd shapes of the flowers. I would stitch a piece on, open it up and find that it didn't lay at all where I intended. Oops. So here is my method for eliminating that little problem. Also, reduces waste!
1. Print a cardboard template and cut each piece out.
2. Use a little rolled piece of masking tape, sticky side out, to tape the template to the WRONG side of the fabric. (This seemed to be where most of my mistakes happened while cutting, so be careful)
3. Cut 1/4 - 3/16 of an inch all the way around.
 |
| My stack of pieces. This will make 8 quilt blocks. |
.....and an hour and a half later I had cut all the pieces for 8 blocks and started stitching them
Oh and FYI, although I'm probably the only person silly enough to actually do this... spray starch is bad for paper piecing patterns. It makes the ink bleed. Wait until you remove the paper to starch the block.
... I'm not left-handed...
Linking up to Building Blocks Tuesday (see my sidebar for a link), even those these blocks aren't complete yet!
Oh this must be Nana's quilt. What pretty pink fabric. This is going to be so pretty! I like to sew to movies I've seen before too. Entertaining - yet you don't even have to look at the screen to enjoy the movie.
ReplyDeleteThank-you! My favorites are epic movies, like Lord of the Rings, Narnia, etc.
DeleteKaelyn, love your block. Just wondering why your are doing an English Paper piecing method instead of just a regular paper piecing method for this block?
ReplyDeleteIt actually is regular paper pieced, but I found it a lot easier when placing the next piece, to have the fabric pieces cut to the correct shape. For some reason just cutting a rectangle large enough wasn't working :)
DeleteHi Kaelyn, dropping by from Building Blocks Tuesday - though I'm a day late posting my block! Great block - I know what you mean about Foundation Paper Piecing - I do a lot of it and had that same problem when I started but then I stopped cutting my fabric down for each piece - I leave it around fat quarter size or half a fat quarter and this means when it's folded back it's always big enough in the right direction and also when I cut off the excess it's still attached to the original fat quarter so no waste either (hope that all makes sense?!) :)
ReplyDeleteIt makes perfect sense! Thanks for the tip, I will try that out.
DeleteLovely block, those angles are a trial aren't they!
ReplyDeleteThank-you! And yes, they are.
Delete