paper piecing tips from a frugal girl

Happy June! It is my month to choose a block for the Sew Sisters Quilting Bee. It's always SO HARD to choose a block for a bee, so I asked my friend Tara what I should do. She suggested a kaleidoscope block, which I thought was a great idea! (Thank you, Tara!) Rather than use an existing template, I made my own---of course! I really like that it is a paper pieced block, so even though 10 different ladies will be sewing up blocks, the accuracy will still be there!

I love paper piecing for accuracy sake (it's the only reason to paper piece in my mind!), but let's face it....it wastes fabric. And lots of it!

Several years ago, I learned this trick, and I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to share it with you. Today is the day! What is this lovely trick? Make templates for each piece before you piece the block. Templates? Yes, it's an extra step, but for paper piecing, it's totally worth it, if you ask me. I am not going to teach you HOW to paper piece, that's not my job. (hahahaha!) This is just a trick to keep you from wasting fabric and to help keep your scraps tidy WHILE you paper piece. Tidy scraps are very important to me. (And that's no joke!)

Ok, let's get started. First, print off your templates. (For each block, you will need two regular and two reverse templates.)

Cut the template apart on the lines. I keep an older rotary cutter in my craft room JUST for cutting paper. It's fun to rotary cut paper AND it's a good way to use old blades that are too dull to cut fabric. It's accurate, too!

Trace your pieces onto another sheet of paper. You can mark the points of each triangle and then use a ruler or straight edge to connect the lines.

Use your rotary cutter and a clear ruler to cut out each piece, leaving a 3/8" seam allowance around each edge.

Here you have each piece with a 3/8" seam allowance added. Label them with the numbers in the same orientation as your template, so you know which side is up! You technically only need 1/4" all around, but the extra 1/8" gives you a bit of wiggle room. You will be glad you have it! Also, note how I trimmed off some of the long points from each triangle.

When it's time to cut out the fabric, place the template (face down, because everything is reversed an backwards when you paper piece) and cut around the paper using your fabric rotary cutter. Notice, I didn't cut super close to the edge....it doesn't have to be exact, but close is good. Then, paper piece as usual. There is less fabric flopping around, and since your pieces are pre-cut, it's easier to align them!

 Once I pieced my block, these are all the trimmings I had left! Isn't that amazing??

I still have odd shapes leftover from piecing the block, but that's just the nature of the block that I'm making. At least the scraps are all fairly tidy. Still usable for something!

 Here are just a few more examples to see how tidy it is. This is the paper side, before it's trimmed.

 And the fabric side before it's trimmed.

I like to leave the background or the center piece in a square to start off with. This is to illustrate how the first piece looks like before you add the first line of stitching...before sewing.

And after sewing, once it's pressed into place. It's so tidy as you go!

Here are my 4 block sections. Once sewn together, it will make a 10" finished block. I'm not going to sew blocks together until I get all the pieces, so I can easily distribute the colors throughout the quilt. It think it's going to be a super fun and colorful quilt!

I hope that these tips help (and don't confuse) you! If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them in the comments!

Happy Monday to you!