A flurry of butterflies….

Yesterday was a public holiday here in the US and I fully embraced the good weather and took the day off…. so no paper piecing Monday this week. Instead I wanted to share one of the paper piecing projects I have been working on for the last week or so…

I have been making butterfly blocks using Lizzy House fabric and tone-on-tone white scraps. My obsession with making these blocks took seed when Lizzy’s new fabric line, Natural Histories came out and included this wonderful print…I had purchased a fabulous butterfly pattern a year or so ago from Juliet at Tartan Kiwi so I went to work making blocks. The pattern, if you are interested, is only $2.50 and can be bought HERE.

The pattern is for a 5 inch butterfly and it takes four parts to make one block….

The more of these I have made the quicker the process has become. There are some small bits to the pattern but nothing to complex… and I love the end result.

For my butterfly collection I also enlarged the pattern a little. The yellow butterfly above is the 5 inch block and the green butterfly is what I got when I enlarged the pattern to take up the whole of a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.

My finished butterfly collection will have both block sizes and a fun array of colours. I am using just Lizzy House fabric and trying not to repeat any fabric…and I love how they all look.

18May2015

The last green star….

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Welcome to Paper Piecing Monday….the final edition of the Green Star series…

$fractured star$ There is no rhyme or reason for my colour placement on this star… I just had fun and put scraps where ever they fitted. Some how it seemed the thing to do with this the 20th star in the series. Yep you read that right, I made 20 green stars and shared 20 patterns.

I had a change of heart this week about how I wanted to layout of the stars in the final quilt, and so do not want to share anything yet. I hope to play some more this week and have a WIP (work in progress) shot for you next week.

The last 8 inch star pattern can be found here…fractured star pattern.

Do not fret, paper piecing Monday will be back next week, but with something NON star related.

11May2015

A simpler green star…

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Today’s paper piecing Monday I decided to keep it a little simpler – only a four-part pattern!

With this pattern you can decide to not do the pieced center part (just use one piece of fabric to cover the center triangle). This give you a different looking star with less bulk in the center.

You can find the free paper piecing pattern for this 8 inch block here…Stripey Star pattern. Only a few more green blocks to go and then I can star putting this top together.

4May2015

Dealing with bulky seams….PP Monday style

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

After making my green star for this week I ummed and ahhed about whether to share it on the blog. I love the star, but it suffers from the problem that a lot of paper piecing stars suffer from… a bulky center.

It is a fun star but the center is where 16 points of fabric meet, and as the star is only 8 inches square it makes for a lumpy middle. Now this is a problem that I came across when I first started making paper pieced stars and there are a couple of tricks for minimizing the bulk.

1. Iron seams open… ALL the seams are ironed open on my stars… and when the paper is removed I starch the seams so that all they want to do is stay open.

2. Remove the paper pattern in the corners BEFORE I sew all the pieces of the star together.

This step means you are less likely to get paper stuck in the center joins… and so less bulk.

3. Use tweezers to remove any excess paper that does get stuck….

The only other trick is I have found that quilting through the bulk helps soften it, and with time, washing also softens it too.

Now there is only so much of the bulkiness you can effect… at the end of the day the bulk is there because so many seams are meeting at the same point. I personally think the visual effect of the stars are worth the extra bulk…

Now, if I have not turned you off this pattern, you can find the PDF here….turning star pattern.

Enjoy.

28Apr2015

Paper Piecing Tuesday

Posted in Paper Piecing Monday by wombatquilts

Hello and welcome to Paper Piecing Tuesday…. yesterday got away from me so this week we are paper piecing a day late.

This week we are back to green stars. I have 5 blocks to go before I have enough to finish my quilt top… So to start this final green wave we have the Alternating Star…

I had fun making this one, alternating light and dark stripes. The PDF pattern for this 8 inch star can be found here…Alternating star pattern. See you next week for another star!