Paper Piecing - New Journey

Paper Piecing is something I tried and didn't much care for.  A friend urged me to give it another go and to check out Carol Doak's method, steering me to Facebook to look her up.  Well, Facebook led me to her site, which led me to her blog, which led me to her Yahoo group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CarolDoakQuiltingGroup/  I found free PP blocks along the way and great information.  Her Yahoo group is gearing up for a new Mystery BOM and of course, I want to join in on the fun!! 

I better start easy, so I downloaded the free instructions from her blog for her easy method of Introduction to Paper Piecing.  Using EQ7, I quickly had a small quilt to make which would be used to cover the Juki 2010 that resides on my quilt frame.  What??? It will take 40 little 4" PP squares to make this little quilt??  Sigh....guess I'll get in some good practice.

Picking fabrics is a true challenge for me.  I spend a whole afternoon auditioning fabrics from my stash.  I'm using batiks and finally narrowed it down to only one more fabric to choose.  I had  that I thought might work.   BRILLIANT IDEA struck me!  Take pictures and see which one looks the best.  I did, I chose and here's a shot of those 3.

So, all the patterns have been printed, most of the fabrics cut...still need to cut more background, but I got antsy and wanted to MAKE ONE!!!    I made all of 2!  LOL  All cuts are labeled and I have a visual on the wall above my sewing machine. 

If any of you have sewn garments, I got a great tip that a member on Carol's group posted.  Use a dart wheel to run along the stitch lines of the paper pattern before sewing.  This perforates the paper, making it very easy to fold when trimming seam allowances and checking to see if the fabric fits the section.  This dart wheel belonged to my Mom and may very well have belonged to my Grandmother as well.   It has a wooden handle.


Dart Wheel

So....here I go again!!!!!