Paper pieced?

[Rita C.]

Oh poor peeps! Well I hope everybody with the 'flu makes a speedy recovery. I am kind of glad now that my DH frog-marched me off to the Doctor in October to get the 'flu jab.

[Denise L.]

Finally I feel back to myself. All alone in the studio and time to work on the TQS BOM I cut one strip of each fabric and marked my cuts using Margo's template and disappearing pen on each strip. I then used my ruler to cut the pieces on the drawn line. I had purchased some vellum paper and printed off one page of Paper Pieces. Notice I am not advancing too far in my cutting and printing until I know for sure how it will work. Once I got in the swing of things, it went together rather quickly. Love Margo's idea of how to tear off the paper to avoid the schribbles(SP) too. Once done, measured and it's FREAKING perfect. Yahoo!

denise

[Margo C.]

[Beth A.]

I unfortunately, I began my paper-piecing before seeing Margo's video. I tried cutting my triangles more closely, but consistently found myself coming up short, so I began cutting my strips 3 1/2", and they worked. Now I'm sure I won't have enough fabric, since Margo suggests cutting the strips only 3". (I didn't know how to figure out those little nips, and so could not accurately place them without that extra fabric.)

For those of us who went ahead and stitched, will we have the option of purchasing more orange and turquoise dot fabric to finish our triangle strips?

BethMI

[Margo C.]

Yes, Beth. Watch for an announcement in the Newsletter, Daily Blog and here on the forum when the extra fabric is available for purchase.
Some will automatically be sent if you purchased the kit before the shortage from shrinkage was addressed, but it may not be enough extra for paper piecing if you didn't cut really small pieces.

[Mary A.]

I have a question. How do you add a photo when posting a reply to the Forum? For example, if I wanted to include a photo of my paper pieced sections here?

[Margo C.]

I have a question. How do you add a photo when posting a reply to the Forum? For example, if I wanted to include a photo of my paper pieced sections here?

Instructions are here: http://forum/forum-questions-and-sug...-the-tqs-forum

Your unit looks great on the Show & Tell page!

[Beth A.]

I am ALMOST done with paper-piecing the triangle sashing units.

But I am now out of the turquoise, so I will have to await the extra fabric to finish up.

In retrospect, however, I would really urge Alex, John and the staff to consider sending enough fabric to allow people to cut their triangle strips 3 1/2" wide and made my cutting template 2 1/2" on the bottom horizontal. If you do that, you don't have to notch or anything. You just line up the tips of the triangles, center them over the paper strip and and stitch away, trimming each piece with the Add-a-Quarter ruler as Margo recommends. It goes very quickly, and you NEVER come up short. At the end, you trim away about 18 to 1/4 inch of "stuff" around each edge, and VOILA! And you can use those same triangles on the end pieces, so you don't have to cut a separate template for those ends.

You use more fabric, but it is a much less "picky" process -- and thus more enjoyable.

Of course, I now need more turquoise and orange, but I am counting on TQS to come up with a "package" that I can purchase or otherwise get so I end up with enough.

BethMI

[Mary A.]

Thanks for the instructions, Margo. I will "practice" here and attempt to include a photo. The colors are not exactly true, The greens are really much greener and not so yellow.

[Constance G.]

Looks great, Mary Ellen!

[Constance G.]

I am (stubbornly) hanging in there with the Striplate method. I have completed two sets of the short slashing. The blocking is the real headache, but I'm not convinced that I was doing it correctly. I ordered Debra Wagner's book 2 weeks ago from one of the used book sellers on Amazon, but no book yet, and the seller won't respond to my emails. I'm beginning to think this technique is cursed! :shock:

[JANE T.]

Thanks for the video Margo. Great job and very clear. Do you wait until after the two units are joined to the strip to remove the paper? It seems like you could use the dots on the paper to make sure the points are sharp and not cut off. Your thoughts?

[Margo C.]

No Janie, I remove the paper before joining the two units to the gold strip. I don't use the dots on the pattern for that, I just sew with the pieced unit on the top where I can see it, and the starched gold strip on the bottom, next to the feed dogs, so I can be sure to stitch just to the right of the point of the triangles and not stitch over them! Works like a charm!

I can see my points so I don't stitch over them:


You can also see where I removed one triangle and replaced it, stitching close to the first stitching line.


Using the dots on the printed pattern will make the points line up better on opposite sides of the gold strip, but I know that my quilt is not destined to be in a show to please judges, and I think this method is accurate enough for me. Sue and Pat are teaching methods that they use to create their award winning projects, and I think it's great to know how to achieve that accuracy!

[Annis C.]

And it's much faster to remove the paper first. Then you don't have all of those little pieces to remove in the seam allowance. I would probably leave it on if I were doing a miniature quilt or entering it into a judged show.

[Rita C.]

I started working on mine last night and after doing a couple I decided to keep the paper on and use the lines as my guide. Works perfectly for me. Yes it's a bit more fiddly getting the papers off but not the end of the world. Annis, thank you so much for the suggestion of useing the add-a-quarter ruler with the templates, that has been fantastic. I don't know if anybody else suggested this yet but I found that putting a tiny strip of double sided tape on the back side of my templates worked a treat to keep the templates in place on the fabric while cutting. It hardly adheres to the fabric but makes a big difference. I have also found that using a Hera marker to press the seams is so much better than finger pressing. Just my tuppence worth.