Sunday I spent the afternoon with friends working on our individual sewing/quilting projects. One of the ladies brought the star blocks each of us made her as part of the membership block swap in one of my quilt groups.
She had all the blocks laid out so she could piece the sashing and set the quilt. It reminded me how much I enjoyed making her block. For the swap, she gave each of us a different paper pieced star pattern plus a piece of focus fabric to use as a guide when selecting fabrics. None of the blocks had exactly the same colors, but they all played nice because the colors coordinated.
I discovered paper piecing early in my quilting life and fell in love with the accuracy. In the early days quarter inch seams and matching points gave me fits. Okay, they still do sometimes. Then I discovered the Paper Panache website and her mystery quilts. I didn’t just make a few paper pieced blocks, I made whole wall quilts with what seemed like a thousand pieces. I hadn’t learned appliqué yet and still struggled with traditional piecing, so this was my method of choice.
I quilted happily along until I made the blocks for this quilt.
This one did me in. I officially burned myself out. I haven’t made a paper pieced quilt since, although I’ve done some blocks here and there. I finished this quilt over two years ago and I think I’m finally ready to give the technique another go. This time I’ll work it in between painting, appliqué, piecing and quilting to keep the burnout at bay.
quiltpaintcreate 