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-
- --===Technique-Outrageous Foundation Piecing===--
- _
-
- -===Outrageous Foundation Piecing===-
-
- -===by Debra Weiss===-
-
- Templates are out. Foundation piecing is all the rage right now, for several
- excellent reasons. It's fast, it's extremely accurate and it's a lot of fun.
- Once you start paper piecing, you'll never look at blocks or design the same
- way again.
-
- Foundation piecing is a lot easier to do than to explain. First, I'll show you
- exactly how to do it, and then we'll have some fun exploring where you can go
- once you've got the basics down.
-
- _Which blocks or designs can be foundation pieced?_
-
- Basically, paper piecing consists of flipping and sewing. Therefore, blocks
- that have set-in seams or pieces that need to be joined to others on seams
- that aren't straight won't work. However, blocks that you don't think will
- work can be paper pieced by dividing them into sections.
-
-
- A good candidate. Start in the center, work around in a circle. This
- won't work. Too many set in seams. Divide this into 4 sections and make
- each one separately, sew together.
- The main thing to realize is the paper with your sewing lines is facing you,
- but you are actually constructing the block on the BACK of the paper. This
- means that your finished block will be _a mirror image _of what you see on the
- front.
-
- This becomes important when you're cutting your fabric pieces. If you are
- using the shape you see on the front to cut angles, when you put them on the
- back, you may get a nasty surprise. The easiest way to avoid this is simply to
- either print or trace your sewing lines on both sides of the paper. When you
- cut fabric pieces, use the back of the paper for your guide, not the front.
- Having the lines on the back also makes it a lot easier to line up the pieces
- correctly before you sew, and you can use regular computer paper that's harder
- to see through than tracing paper.
-
- I'll just go ahead and whip up our good candidate now, and you can see how I
- do it in a quick slide
- show demo.
- [http://www.cstone.net/~debra/slide/slide.htm]
-
- Goofing Around with Other Block Shapesá
-
- áLinda Schiffer is the author of three books on foundation piecing and she's
- worked up some neat block designs and sets for us. We hope these inspire you
- to design your own foundation blocks and see what you can come up with. Her
- assignment was to come up with some blocks utiltizing the rectangle. Click on
- the images to see how they look in sets.
-
-
-
-
-
- You don't have to depend on pattern books or file libraries to obtain
- interesting paper patterns. It's fun and easy to draft your own. Try using
- triangles or other shapes as your basic block and see what you can come up
- with. You might come up with something really unexpected, and that's what it's
- all about.
-
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