Turning my first paper pieced blocks into a quilt - Part 1
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about trying paper piecing for the first time. I made five little practice blocks from scraps using a Carol Doak template. They were not perfect but they were so colourful and fun that I decided to hang on to them and turn them into a quilt.
Two of the five paper pieced blocks, framed in white and purple solids (Aug 2013)
Because the paper pieced blocks are so colourful and contain so many different patterns, I decided to frame them with 1'' off-white strips (Kona solid in snow, my go-to colour for this kind of thing) to make a cleaner edge. I used the white strips to correct little mistakes in the blocks where the fabric did not go quite to the edge, so each block is a slightly irregular shape. This also gives the blocks a nice improvised look. I then added triangles in purple to make a bigger square block. Here you can see two of the five blocks (not yet squared up).
Triangle blocks made from scraps (Aug 2013)
I only had five paper pieced blocks, each measuring 4'' x 4'', so I needed to make some additional blocks for the quilt. I decided to make triangles from the same scraps used in the paper pieced blocks and add a white border to each.
Here are six of the triangles. I made 15 in total. At this stage I am planning on using 12 triangles in the quilt so having a few extra will give me a bit of flexibility when choosing the pattern / colour combinations.
The paper pieced blocks were made entirely from scraps. The Kona snow fabric was from a bundle of Kona bolt end cuts I bought at eQuilter and the purple solid is fabric from my stash. I have a pretty clear idea of the design I want to sew and have decided that this quilt will be made entirely from stash and scrap fabric. Stay tuned to find out how the quilt progresses!