Foundation Paper Piecing Made Easy
A Great Method for Beginning Quilters!
Many quilters shy away from paper piecing, thinking it’s too complicated to tackle. However, it’s a great method for achieving perfectly accurate quilt blocks and for creating intricate designs. Perfect points and working with small pieces of fabric are a breeze with this method.
There are many stunning quilt blocks that should only be attempted with paper piecing as it would be too difficult to get nice blocks with traditional piecing. But, even simple blocks benefit from this method. There’s no need for accurate cutting and sewing perfect quarter inch seams to make a beautiful block. That’s why this is a great method for beginning quilters.
Paper piecing begins with a paper pattern. That is used as the foundation for the block. You’ll be sewing along the lines between the patches. Most paper pieced blocks and quilts have templates for you to print out on your computer’s printer. Printer paper works just fine for this method.
Once you have the paper template, cut fabric pieces larger than the areas you want them to appear in within the block. You’ll sew seams through the paper and the fabric, and trim the seam allowances later. Just be sure to use a small stitch length for easily removing the paper once you’re done stitching the block together.
In the following video from The Crafty Gemini you’ll see exactly how to create a block using the foundation paper piecing process. Before long you’ll be getting great results of your own, regardless of how simple or intricate the block is. And, you’ll achieve a level of accuracy that can be a challenge to achieve with traditional piecing. Your blocks will stitch together into a beautiful polished quilt, even if you’re a new quilter.
Click here to watch the video at YouTube if it doesn’t play on your device.
Patterns for the paper pieced quilt blocks shown in this article are available here.
