I am a died in the wool paper piecing quilter. A novice but I'm getting better. A question! All the patterns show solid color pieces in their designs. Can I use patterned fabric instead. Sometimes the solid colors get to be a little dull.

First and foremost Welcome to our board Mar32428. You will find alot of freindly helpful people here.

Sometimes I think they show the solid to make it easier to lokk at it no distraction of all the pretty fabric while learning to do it. I know all the instruction I have seen show solid and a differnt color for each piece of the instruction.

I see know reason you can't use what you want. Your quilt go for it.

I have made quite a few quilts, but I don't guess I have ever done any paper piecing. I have done strip piecing, followed patterns, templates and traced around block by block for several.

Can someone tell me in a nutshell what that is all about? I keep seeing the term, but have no idea what it means.

GramMER

Sure you can use fabric with a print! The only challenge I've ever had with paper-piecing and printed (particularly stripes or directional) fabric is when what I'm piecing has to have all the lines going the same way. Say it's a star like Tim's medallion star, and you wanted lines in the fabric to flow from center to point. If it were template-pieced, you could "fussy cut" each piece. When paper-piecing, you have to be sure your fabric lines fold out and lie straight after they're sewn. It can be a bit of a challenge, but not impossible! Always fun to experiment-- :lol:

I got to thinking, maybe I should not be so lazy and try to answer my own question. So I did a Google search and found this site:

http://quilting.about.com/od/foundat...er_Piecing.htm

Well, now I know why I have never done any paper piecing, but I have done some foundation piecing on cloth. I remember thinking earlier that it was too much trouble to do a log cabin pattern using paper as a background. However, I was pleasantly surprised this time to find that the crazy quilt probably will go much faster if done this way.

Thanks for enduring my ignorance,

GramMER

Oh,GramMer, there is no ignorance in quilting. There are as many ways as there are fabrics I do believe. One phamplet, web page, or book tells you one thing another tells you something different to get the same result. I've found in my novice way, that I have to read a lot to find one that works easiest for me. I'm searching on the paper piecing, too, I've that block to do for the BOM and I'm so afraid of messing all that pretty fabric up.

Hugs, MimiSharon

Paper piecing is a pattern divided into several parts. Each part may have from one to eleven parts in it. You lay your fabric on a particular section of the paper pattern and sew to the next section. Very similar to stitch and flip except you are working with all different shanps and colors to complete the design. It's like putting a jigsaw puzzle together in fabric. If you start, be careful because it's very addictive.

I forgot to tell you paper piecing is a great way to get rid of all those scraps.

MimiSharon,

I like your grandmotherly name. It tells where the real focus is. LOL

Thanks for the encouragement on paper piecing. I know this much. Paper piecing is likely to help newbies put difficult patterns together. I remember how much trouble I had doing an 8-pointed star with templates and making all those corners meet exactly. I also remember working with a pattern called broken dishes and giving up. I had 84 blocks done before I finally put them all into a closet and left them there. The corners just would not meet properly and the seams all wanted to go the wrong way for me.

Thanks again,

GramMER