I am very new to quilting. I am currently making a hand stitched paper pieced hexagon quilt. This is fairly easy, all you have to do is whip stitch, the paper pieces keep my hexagons even. I have been working on this quilt top for almost 2 years, taking breaks from time to time. I am looking for ideas for my next quilt and thought I would try a hand stitched applique Baltimore Album Quilt. I watched a tutorial on YouTube where someone used freezer paper to assist in cutting out the shapes and then she used the freezer paper as a guide to hand sew the pieces to the block fabric. Then she cut the back of the solid block piece of fabric that she stitched her design too in order to pop out the freezer paper pieces. My question is: Although, this technique looks like it would help make a nice looking design but does cutting the back out of your block piece of fabric hurt the overall effect of your quilt once it's quilted together with the batting and back fabric. If you are using a light color fabric, won't it show through. Is the quilt going to fall apart one day or start to fray as time goes by. Or does the way you actually quilt the layers together prevent that from happening? Geez, I thought quilting was going to be an easy thing for me to learn to do but each website I view or each book I read and every blog I go to, only causes me to have more questions. And, the bad thing is.....I don't know anyone who quilts that I can ask. I hope I'm not being a pest. But until I found your Quiltingboard today, I was getting a little frustrated. It seems that the people here are very generous with their thoughts and ideas. I've inquired about a quilting class, they are few and far in between in Baltimore, MD, and when I went to the shops, only 2 places, the people there weren't very friendly. Hmmm, should I take up some other hobby or craft like ceramics or sky diving? LOL YouTube is a wonderful source of information but they don't allow you to ask questions. Please help!