Jolo, I will light a candle for your son's fast recovery this evening.

Oh my, Patti, removing that paper is the part I hate the most! I try to be very careful and I still feel like I stress the threads. I have been removing mine after I finish each block. When I print the pattern, I also print the block page, then I pin each finished block on the back side to the page. I feel like that provides some protection and each 6 week group, is in a large ziploc.

Not all of my blocks are exactly 5 inches, some are 1/16 to 1/8 short...so I suppose I will need to make up the difference with the sashing, I am growing more concerned about that, as I thought the sizing would come in closer the more I made. :(

I pull off the paper as it goes along. It is stressful and I can't imagine letting anyone else do it! they'd have to be a paper piecer or I'd be too nervous to trust them not to break threads. It happens to me as it is. My favorite teacher says to do a back stitch or three at the start and stop...but boy, that would just make is sooooooo much slower. So sometimes I have to go back and fix a seam! Everything gets starched and put into plastic bags..not much movement so I'm hoping nothing gets out of shape over the next year or so!

i am sending my prayers up for your dear son

Jolo, so sorry to hear about your DS - I hope all goes well, please let us know.

As for the pp and removing the paper, perhaps I have been using a much smaller stitch than the rest of you. I have been turning it down from the default by quite a bit, and the paper comes out quite well apart from the tight corners, where tweezers come in very handy.
Re sizing, I am not that good at gettiing blocks to come out the right size, so from the beginning, I cut the pattern shapes about an eighth larger on all the outside edges. That reminded me to leave more fabric on those as I cut out the pieces. It also gave me a nice leeway to trim down rather than worry about being short. (and more wiggle room to line up so that I won't cut off points when I sew in assembly). Hope that helps Wil, try it and see, it might make all the difference for the rest.

Since I'm using vellum, its pretty easy to tear and I'm leaving my stitch length at slightly below 2. I generally don't have a problem with it like that. I just hate to pull the paper because it hurts my hands...but thats just part of it. So..I'll have to do it when I count up the pieces of the already done blocks :oops: :lol:

When I am cutting out my pp patterns, I draw an arrow on the outside edges to remind myself not to trim those sides until the very last. It allows a little "fudge" room for me.

Lesley & Patti - thanks for the size tips, I will try them.

I use a tighter stitch on the PP too, it does help, but if I make the stitch any smaller, I would not be able to rip out a seam if I need too, as once in a while I will not use a patch large enough...but I can say this, I have learned a lot from working on this quilt already! Thank you Jane! :)

Oh gosh, Meredith, you are so right! I have learned a TON from this quilt! Wonder if Jane could have ever imagined what would become of her quilt or that she would become a "quilting legend"???

If you aren't sure about a patch, use the largest stitch on your machine. It's quick to zip across, and comes out like a dream if the patch isn't big enough. If it is OK, stitch over it with the smaller stitch and don't bother to remove. I also used the largest stitch across the miiddle of papers that had no other patch attached, rather like a tacking stitch. Again, it comes out a dream when you have the whole thing put together. The only drawback as far as I can see is that you use extra thread

You probably aren't going to love me for this, but I thought I would show you what I have been doing today. I already had the first row assembled (on the left), I did that a few weeks ago when I couldn't wait any longer to see what it would look like. Today I put four more rows together, and tacked a few of the LS triangles together too. I haven't machined the tris yet, I want to wait until I have all the centre blocks together, to see if I can get away with a broader outside strip than the quarter inch that is supposed to be used.

I now have row 1 stitched to row two, and quilted, (it looks really dinky with tiny corner stones) I'll take a pic of that in the morning.