I am making my husband a quilt and so far I have handpieced the whole thing. Each block has lighthouses in the center of a star with sashing in between each of the blocks. On each of the side borders I made a nautical flags which spell out "Michigan Lighthouses". Across the top in letters I want to spell Michigan and on the bottom border the year. Originally 2009 but now 2010. I've never paper pieced before and a friend lent me a book by Doak with the letter pattern. My question is, can I do the paper piecing by hand. A posting I read earlier talked about sewing the piecess. Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated. :?

i think it would be very exhausting on the hands to sew thru paper but give a test block a try and see how it goes

When you do paper piecing, you rip the paper away from your stitching and I think this would distort any hand stitching that you had done. Excellent idea to do a sample of an easy block first.

Your hand stitching will have to be very tiny...back stitch at the beginning and ending of every row :wink: :D:D:D

Also, I would lay the piece flat on a table when tearing off the paper. Do it gently after folding it over and creasing it before tearing. This way you can support it with one hand laying flat on it, while tearing with the other.

You could print the pattern on muslin and then you wouldn't have to rip anything out. And I think it would be easier to sew through than paper

Great ideas.

/Thanks for all your ideas. i'm goingn to try a practice squaree tonight.

I took a quilting class a long time ago where one project was a hand stitched paper pieced block. We were told to take tiny stitches and to wet the paper before we took it out. The block came out fine. However, I like the idea of using muslin as the foundation. Printers have come a long way since I took the class and it would be pretty easy this way.

You could use used dryer sheets instead of paper and it should work really, really well. The dryer sheets are light enough to trace thru and would be easy to sew thru and you wouldn't have to tear it away.