English Paper Piecing

I've always been intrigued with postage stamp quilts made from tiny stamp size fabric scraps...especially the ones that are made by hand rather than a machine.

Shirley, a friend from Lexington exhibited a postage stamp quilt in a show that I posted about here: 

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2018/10/glueing-and-waiting.html

I've always wanted to give it a try.

I've been re-inspired by Sarah Cooper's English paper piecing as a way to make a postage stamp quilt. Everytime I see a post about it on her Instagram Page....I say to myself...."I'm going to give that a try"......but never have.  Just recently I saw another post from Sarah....and at about 9:00 pm I decided it was time to finally give it a try. Not my best time of day for creating....but I needed to seize my enthusiasm.  This is Sarah's quilt in progress and it can be found here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWdvy54rb6s/

English paper piecing is a technique where you wrap and baste fabric around a paper template then hand stitch the pieces together.  It's become quite popular with hexagon quilting.  I found this image and instructions here: https://www.allpeoplequilt.com/how-to-quilt/piecing/how-to-english-paper-piecing?

I grabbed a few swatches of blue fabrics and some punched paper squares and just winged it based on what little I knew.  Immediately I could tell this was something I was going to enjoy.

I'll share a bit about my process in a minute....but what I love about this technique is how much easier it is to work with small pieces...and how perfectly (or nearly so) you can match the corners. I could NEVER do that with machine stitching.

In the light of day....I was compelled to use more vibrant colors....so pulled more fabric swatches and put together a little box ready to go.  

It seemed almost decadent....but I took a little time this afternoon.....watched TV and thoroughly enjoyed myself hand sewing more little squares.

The fabric squares are roughly cut bigger than my 1 inch paper squares....which I just punched out of scrap paper.  Last night I was making more stitches than needed...today I learned that just a few were needed to hold the fabric around the paper square. Once the squares are sewn together the basting gets pulled out and the paper removed.

This was the lineup on the arm of my chair in the early afternoon light.  It just makes me happy.

And now I'll share the back of the blue chunk  from last night.  I have only taken out the basting stitches and removed the paper on the middle two squares....they are the only ones that are completely enclosed with stitches.

And this is where I landed this afternoon with the colors...just starting to sew some squares together. I would love to think I could make a full size quilt this way....Shirley's had 6,715 pieces....and that's a little daunting! For now I'm going to think small and maybe make these into a mug rug/coaster. This paper piecing hand work will be the perfect project to take on the road and when I'm having tea with my stitching buddies....or in the evenings watching TV.  What was I waiting for?