Paper Piecing Tutorial – Basics

A Quick And Easy To Follow Paper Piecing Tutorial.

This paper piecing tutorial simply shows the main concept behind paper piecing to use a paper foundation to stitch your fabric block. After all of the blocks are completed and stitched together, you rip the paper off of the back. I’ve struggled getting my head wrapped around paper piecing. I couldn’t quite figure out how to get the shapes that I wanted and then to get all four edges the same so that they worked out when you put the whole quilt or pattern together.

Just to note:

Paper piecing and foundation piecing are the same thing.
> Foundation Paper Piecing to distinguish it from the “original” paper piecing, now known as English Paper piecing.
> English Paper Piecing is where fabric is folded over a shape (such as a hexagon) and basted, then the pieces are whipstitched together. ( Whipstitching is when you sew something together with overcast stitches. I’m sure you’ve seen it all over the place).

In Foundation Paper Piecing, the whole design is drawn or printed on a foundation, and
you sew on the lines. Hope this makes it much clearer.

Foundation Paper Piecing is so easy and that’s why I put it up here. Once you know how to work with it, the designs that you can create are just endless. They also look so pro!

It takes a bit of figuring out to see how you get pieces of your design stitched together, because it’s almost ‘free style’ but… sort of under the guide of your design on paper. You start off with the shape in your mind. Draw it on paper, and put the fabric, wrong side up on the paper.

The video shows you how to number your pattern piece, numbered on the paper, that is. You decide which fabric to start with, and that’s the first piece of fabric you put on the paper. Then you take your second piece of fabric, and match it up by number on the Foundation Paper Piece. Allow a 1/4inch seam allowance and baste it. When you open up the fabric, you will see how the design starts coming to get with the Paper Piece pattern.

Your designs can be so unique. It’s unlimited really!

I found this video. It’s a simple straight forward video from someone who just sat down and figured it out herself.

Images: Youtube TheCraftyGemini