Paper piecing

[Teri L.]

:P WoW! What great hints!
'veI rarely use this method, but will try these tips when I do This is the year to learn, isn't it. LOVE the accuracy.
Roses

[Paula D.]

Littleflower - Great idea about the q-tip and water!

[Paula D.]

I have done quite a bit of paper piecing and the best advice I can give is don't take the paper off until your entire quilt is put together. It makes your joining a lot easier and more accurate. Also, if you want to make your own design, do one block before printing all of them! LOL Learned that the hard way and those paper piecing pages aren't cheap!

[Paula D.]

I use a tiny stitch and pre-crease all the folds ahead of sewing time because I then find it easier to cut my 1/4" freehand with my bigger fabric scissors. the paper easily folds back in order to cut only fabric.

[Paula D.]

I also pre- crease all of the sew lines before I start sewing. By doing this I can easily see if the fabric piece to be sewn on is placed correctly. (That means I do not have to keep holding it up to a light source to check.)

As others have said, the Add-A-Quarter ruler to me is an essential for trimming the fabric to the correct seam width. This also helps with placement of the next piece.

I also keep a small cutting mat and rotary cutter next to my machine, as well as a small ironing surface and small iron so I can cut, sew, and press quickly.

If I need multiple copies of the same pattern, I will make one copy, staple additional sheets to the copy, and then sew on all of the lines without any thread in my machine. Then I remove the bottom perforated copy, add the numbers, and am ready to start sewing. These perforated copies are really easy to remove.

[Paula D.]

I have been teaching paper piecing for some time now and have found the following techniques to work really well:
I print my paper piecing templates twice, once on the very thin paper I am going to piece on, and second on freezer paper. I cut the freezer paper block apart on the stitching lines before ironing the pieces onto my fabric. I then cut the fabric pieces adding the seam allowance. I place a pin through the fabric piece at each end of the stitching line using the freezer paper template as a guide to match up with the stitching line on the printed block. Once pinned I use a size 60 needle, Alexs Masterpiece thread (very little lint!) and a short stitch length (20 stitches per inch at least) Using such a fine thread allows me to get a really short stitch length which perforates the papers to help removal. Once stitched I peel off the freezer paper template ready for the next block, trim the seam allowance before pressing the piece into place. I leave the piecing papers in place until the blocks are stitched together and fold each line before ripping out. Any little bits left can be pulled out using tweezers though I dont worry about any really tiny pieces. Sometimes I take a water brush (the sort that has a handle that can be filled with water) and paint the stitched line which softens the paper enough to remove it easily.
The freezer paper templates also help in other ways, I can "fussy cut" my fabrics and get the patch exactly where I want it, as well as it stabilizing bias edges before stitching. I find that it also means I get more pieces from my fabic as I dont have to use such big seam allowances as before. I normally use just over a 1/4 inch.
I also iron the printed paper piecing sheets with a dry iron before starting as it seems to permanatly set the ink jet ink allowing me to use steam to press each stitched piece into place before moving onto the next one. No more ink jet ink showing through on the fabrics!