I have decided to do a pp pattern by hand. I choose the TippeCanoe pattern, I've been wanting to do it for awhile. I have my Carol Doak foundation paper but I have never done this by hand, should I double my thread? It's quicker and easier not to but I'm worried since I doing it by hand that my stitches might not be strong enough to hold up to removing the paper or that I might end up with loose threads. Have any of you done this by hand and have any thoughts on it?

if you're going to "pp" by hand, you might want to consider printing your foundations onto a very lightweight muslin instead of onto paper. (1) it will stablize your blocks regardless of your stitch size. (2) it will be much easier to stitch through than paper. (3) no need to remove it.

just a thought (or two ... or three) :-)

I agree. if you're going to pp by hand taking the paper off at the end would distort the pattern terribly.

I made a quilt several years ago where half of the blocks were PP by hand. I agree you need a muslin background, not paper. I actually pressed freezer paper to the back of my foundation fabric, cut to size and ran them through the printer. And I only used one thread, with a small running stitch. Have had no problems with stitches coming undone after multiple washings.

I paper piece all of the time. I admire you for trying it by hand, let us know how it goes.

have fun and let us know how it works by hand

There was a lady on one of my groups who did all of her paper piecing by hand and it was a BUGGER to remove the paper from her swap blocks. She used regular weight copy paper and a very tiny, double threaded stitch. She used hand quilting cotton thread so it didn't break but if she would have used regular machine piecing thread, I think it would have.

If you're going to paper-piece by hand, use thin paper or iron some muslin or light interfacing onto freezer paper, print the pattern off onto the muslin/interfacing (remove freezer paper after printing) and sew onto that. No paper to remove and a nice solid foundation to work with.

You could sew the stitching lines by machine without thread, shorten your stitch length to a very small stitch. The paper may tear away easy enough then without distorting your stitches.