The best tip I've ever read is in "The Art of Machine Piecing" by Sally Collins. She always sews with a stilleto (I use wood skewers) to quide the fabric at intersections, and especially at the end of seams.
Carol Doak advises basting intersection and then you never have to rip out. I

Check with Rhonda on this board, she does a lot of minis. She can probably tell you anything that you need to know about them.

Very pretty

Love your mini (and the colours). Can't help with the PP as I haven't tried it out yet....just wanted to chime in and admire your work.

I love your mini!! It's just so cute!! You did great for your first! I make lots of minis, make my own patterns and most of the time I stay away from PPing and piece instead on foundation pieces like muslin. This way I don't have to tear any paper out and secondly, it gives much needed stability to the little minis. With an ink pen or felt tip pen, I draw my patterns on muslin. Sometimes I use clothes dryer sheets to foundation piece on. This way I can leave them in and it's a time saver!!! Once in a while, I will use pages out of the phone book and draw my patterns on. The paper is very thin and works great for PPing! I noticed other countries use thin paper for their phone books too! You can try that as the paper is easier to remove than other types. Most quilters use tweezers to remove the papers so as to not weaken the threads. In the signature area of my avatar, there is a link for you to see all my minis and patterns I've done. Feel free to use them! Hope I've been of some help to you with PP! :D :thumbup:

Nice work!

Thank you all so much for your tips and links! What a great way to start my day.
I do have to work for money today :lol: for a change and will check out later. Just had a quick look at Rondas work and boahhh..............similar pattern to mine with sashing!? How is that supposed to work??
And I think I will have to get myself new glasses.

I got this crazzy idea to make one more "bears in bed" quilts with 24 miniquilts in it. Will keep me bussy for a while!

Sallie Collins does mini quilts and has a book called Precision Machine quilting. She may have a blog. But I do not know of her doing paper piecing. When you photocopy your pattern, make sure it measures up before doing many copies. Some copiers do not print out exactly as the original.
I have to hand it to you that you are really challenging yourself. And it turned out beautiful.
marla

Beautiful, oh my, another thing to try.

Great job! Love paperpiecing. lots of scraps get used and still you have scraps! Check out lots of pics of minis on Flickr.com, check under groups put in quilting and there are thousands of groups . I see tons I would love to make. I like designing on graph paper. Good luck and just have fun, don't sweat the little things.!