This past week I decided to attempt something new to me with quilting, paper piecing. Paper piecing is when you literally sew your fabric onto a paper pattern to help you create a more accurate design...in theory. Technically since I'd never done it before I should have begun easy, you know a simple pattern with a few pieces of fabric that made a diamond or something. Nope I found a website with really amazing patterns and wanted to make one of them. Of course these amazing patterns also happen to be really advanced too, lol.
This is what I got though, a Mocking Jay, and for anyone who is a fan of The Hunger Games you'll recognize it...hopefully. It's not perfect, and I really want to improve on the next one that I do, but I think it's really not all that bad for a first try at paper piecing!
Because this is not a pattern that I created, I can't sell it, or any of the other patterns that I make that I get from this website. I can give them away as gifts though, and as soon as I posted this image on my personal Facebook, I had several friends ask about getting one for their daughter, or themselves. So now I know what everyone is getting for the holidays this year! lol
I would like to learn how to make my own paper piecing patterns though, it is something that I could see being very helpful for difficult patterns, and even in basic quilting to be sure all the seam lines line up like they are supposed too. I've read that there is a computer program called Electric Quilt that will help you design paper piecing patterns, but I need to do some more research on it since the program is over $150, and frankly if I'm going to lay down that amount of money this program better do everything for me but buy the fabric!
In any case, I'll be making a few more Mocking Jay pieces and making them into bags for friends to practice my paper piecing skills. I'll eventually move on to other patterns though, the website has a whole line of Sesame Street patterns and you know I'm making that quilt for my future children, or nieces, or nephews, or a friends child, okay let's face it the next kid that comes in my life somehow. =)
<3
