Paper Piecing – Page 3 – The Craft Room

Zoo Animals BOM – February

I’m taking part in the zoo animals paper piecing block of the month by Quiet Play.

It went very well. I was determined to only use fabric that I already had, and was lucky to have some blue and grey left over from another project (that I’ll post as soon as I get the pictures uploaded onto the computer!).

I had originally planned to use white as the background, the same as I did for the flamingo, but it wasn’t going to work with the grey. And looking at the blocks still to come, a white polar bear with a white background?! So I think now that I’ll have white for some of them and possibly blue for all that white won’t work for.

I think the eye is looking good and I’m getting better at lining up the seams sewing the sections together.

I’m looking forward to Sunday and finding out which animal will be next!

Zoo Animals BOM – January

I want to get back into sewing this year, so have decided to join in with a few quilt alongs and block of the month projects.

Paper piecing isn’t something I’ve done an awful lot of in the past. In fact I’ve only done one piece of paper piecing before – a digger for a bag for my nephew.

I’m hoping to get better at it this year by taking part in this paper piecing block of the month by Quiet Play.

This month’s block was a flamingo.

I think it went quite well. Not all the seams line up perfectly, but it does look like a flamingo. And I do have eight blocks to go over the coming months to improve!

2013 in pictures

I went looking for photos of all the things I’ve made this year. I found a lot more than I was expecting – I’ve been busy!

Crochet:

Clothes sewing:

Bags, pouches and pencil cases:

Other sewing:

Quilt blocks:

I wonder what I’ll make in 2014?!

Digger Bag

My nephew has the last birthday in the family before Christmas, and this year I made him a bag.

I asked my sister what kind of things he was into, and one of the things on the list that came back was diggers!This bag is made from the Fun-to-Go Tote Kids Bag pattern by Fishsticks Designs.

The digger on the front under the zip is paper pieced, and I then used yellow cotton around it to make the pieces the right side. I had some leftover digger fabric to do the band above the zip.

When it came to the back I was originally going to use the digger fabric, but when I measured it there wasn’t enough left, so I made a band across the top to match the front like this: The handles and the lining are yellow cotton, and there is a layer of yellow fleece inside to give the bag some structure. (It didn’t need to be yellow fleece, but there was a piece the right size and it matched the lining so I thought why not!) The zip pocket runs the entire length of the bag. The pocket is lined in grey cotton (see how all the colours from the digger are used somewhere else as well!)I’m really pleased with how it turned out. I think it looks great 🙂

I’m linking this project up for Sew Cute Tuesday on Blossom Heart Quilts.

My First Paper Piecing

I keep seeing lots of photos around the internet of beautiful paper pieced blocks and quilts, something I’ve never tried before – so I thought it was about time I fixed that!!

I chose a digger pattern, designed by Quiet Play.

When I printed out the pattern and looked over all the tiny pieces I started to think that maybe I should have started with a slightly simpler pattern! But I watched lots of YouTube videos and read lots of instructions and decided to just jump in – it’s quite logical really, follow the numbers, and logical I can do!

It wasn’t completely smooth sailing. I sewed the wrong colour in two places and had to unpick – which with tiny little stitches is no easy feat.

But many hours later (being the slowest sew-er in the world!) it’s finished!

So here is my very first piece of paper piecing – a digger!

I’m going to use this block to make a children’s bag, hopefully next week 🙂

I’m linking up with the Paper Piecing Party over on Quiet Play.