Paper pieced?

[Margo C.]

Margo, where is the seam allowance missing? Where the two are joined? Could you post a photo that shows where that is? I am using Carol Doak's doundation paper, not the vellum. Since the cut pieces are pretty accurate, it is not as critical to see through as it is with regular paper piecing. What is the dotted line at the top of the strips for? Perhaps we will need them later?

Yes Janie the missing seam allowance is where the two are joined for the longer units. If you join the other end of that foundation you need to add that seam allowance or you will come up 1/4" short.



The dotted line at the top of the strips actually show the location of the seam allowance after the gold strip is added when the two completed triangle strips are joined. If you are paper piecing you need to just ignore the dotted line. For your foundation patterns, you just need to add 1/4" seam allowance beyond the dots of the triangles. I have marked the edges in red. For the larger units you join them where I've drawn the blue lines.
(I assume that is why there is no seam allowance there.)



When they are joined they should look like this and should measure exactly 2-3/4" x 16-1/2". If they don't, you are not printing it correctly. Make sure that your printer is set to "no scaling" or "none". Do NOT use the "fit to area" option.



I hope this helps.

[JANE T.]

Thanks Margo. This helps to clarify. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Nancy R.]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. In the meantime I have been measuring and researching and discovered that it was the freezer paper. I was using Barb Vlack's freezer paper method, and when the freezer paper is hit with the iron, it shrinks up just a smidge (about 1/8") which equated to the 1/4" over both templates when they are joined. I'm not sure how she overcomes this, so will do more research.....always learning something on this journey!

I haven't tried this myself, but I've heard somewhere that you should pre-shrink the freezer paper by ironing it on the ironing board before using it. Might be something for you to try next time.

Nancy

[Annis C.]

I have used Carol Doak's paper in the past. Worked fine. We have alot of different types of paper in the house. I was searching for her paper to do some piecing. Found what I thought was her paper. It turned out to be newsprint that my husband uses to sketch on sometimes. Texture and color were very similar. I have to feed it in the printer one sheet at a time but in a pinch it works just fine. Will have to give the vellum a try.

Denise

I used to use Carol Doak's paper. It works about the same as the vellum but is not as see thru. The last time I used it I was trying to use up the rest of the paper I had and page after page kept getting jammed in the printer and since it does tear away easily it was a lot of work getting all of those itsy bitsy pieces out of my printer over and over again! It may have just been a bad batch. I found that placing an Epson loading support sheet (that comes with matte photo paper) behind it helped and holding the top of the paper until the printer started pulling it through also helped. But I don't have enough patience for that, especially when I'm needing dozens of copies. I've never had any trouble with the Office Depot Vellum feeding through my printers, there's no ink transfer, it doesn't shrink, and it doesn't curl when heated with an iron as much as some vellum does.

[Denise L.]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. In the meantime I have been measuring and researching and discovered that it was the freezer paper. I was using Barb Vlack's freezer paper method, and when the freezer paper is hit with the iron, it shrinks up just a smidge (about 1/8") which equated to the 1/4" over both templates when they are joined. I'm not sure how she overcomes this, so will do more research.....always learning something on this journey!

Do not use any steam with freezer paper. I took a painting class using freezer paper as a stencil and we were told a dry Iron would help prevent shrinkage.

Denise

[Marie G.]

I have only used a dry iron, but still got shrinkage. Next time I will try preshrinking, but worry it may not feed through the printer as well....more research! In the meantime I just used Carol Doak's paper which worked fine.

[michele b.]

I'd love to give the paper piecing a try but I get a message that I don't have permission to access the templates in Margo's post. I have to say that my heart sunk when I saw the directions for this month. Seems to be a more difficult than necessary way to get the piecing done.
I'll try again later

[Margo C.]

I'd love to give the paper piecing a try but I get a message that I don't have permission to access the templates in Margo's post. I have to say that my heart sunk when I saw the directions for this month. Seems to be a more difficult than necessary way to get the piecing done.
I'll try again later

Have you tried the SNIP IT tool? http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...e-screen-shots

[michele b.]

I'd like to thank everyone on the list, especially Margo and Annis, for all the helpful tips. I was able to see the diagrams when I logged out and back in and am also delighted to find Snip-it!
I've saved the diagrams and instructions and once I get the paper, I will give it a try.
I am happy that extra fabric may be available for those of us, like me, who want to paper piece, segments and I am disappointed that there are no instructional videos. They would really have helped lower my anxiety level about this first step, and guessing from the number of comments, the anxiety of others.

thanks so much :P

[Susan B.]

Annis, would you please post a picture of the cover of your paper? Thanks!

[Margo C.]

Susan, this is what I came up with using a Google search. Annis please let us know if this is not what you are using.

http://www.officedepot.com/a/product...cing-Paper-11/

[Susan B.]

I guess you have to know where to look! Do a search for vellum on Office Depot and this doesn't appear. It didn't appear on the shelves of my local office depot. If I run out, I'll try a different store. Thanks, Margo.

[Margo C.]

I just did a search on the Office Depot site using the stock number that Annis gave us.

[Annis C.]

Thanks, Margo. No, you can't find it under vellum. That's why I said it was in the tracing paper section and gave the product number. I don't know why it's not listed as vellum.

[Mike E.]

Paper piecing is great - and freezer paper piecing is even better because there is no tearing off at the end. It worked great for the first of these sayings - now back to work!
Best wishes,
Mike