Originally Posted by qbtexas

Hello...well, as I have just jumped into a Judy Niemeyer paper pieced quilt top, I came up with a little tip that may be helpful to some folks on here. Background: I've done paper piecing before, but not ever a bunch of the same design blocks. I'm doing the "Briar Patch" quilt that you can see on the Quiltworx website.

So...I have to make 80 of the same paper pieced block (they are going to be about 6" finished). But, since I am pretty much going with the cover photo and using various fabrics demonstrating the color spectrum throughout the background of the quilt, it is a fairly daunting task. Also, I am not exactly sure how many of each color I really, really need, because I might need to move a few colors around. This being the case, I think it is best that I make a few blocks of each color first, and then fill in the gaps. So I don't want to cut all of the (approx. 25-27 different fabrics!) background pieces at once and end up mixing them up.

Which leads to the dilemma....if I am only making 2-4 of each color at a time, by the time I finish one set, and then cut fabric for the next set, I will have forgotten the best way to line up the pieces for each seam. So I came up with this!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]410040[/ATTACH]

What I did was to leave one block with just the first two pieces in place (top of photo). Then make the next one up to 3 pieces (left side of photo), then the next has 4 pieces, then 5, and so on. I'll come back and finish them all up later, but in the meantime, they are a visual guide of how each step will look and how the fabric lines up. Nice to have a handy reference right in front of me as I go! Hopefully, this will keep me from having to stop and completely figure it out again every single day!

So....hope that is helpful to anyone. and if sounded like nonsense, sorry...I could try to clarify.

Originally Posted by quiltmom04

That's a great idea! As I looked at the pictures I thought you could also take a picture of each step and print them out ( at a low resolution) just like on this post. Then you don't have to tie up a stack of blocks that are partway finished.