Paper Piecing the New York Beauty Quilt - Episode 306.2

[Music] so now that you have seen all of the quilts that I showed you in the little New York Beauty quilt show it's time to learn how to make one before we can make it we need to know the tools I think the most important tool for making anything with paper piecing technique is the add a quarter ruler now this is the six inch and quarter ruler and this is going to be the most common size you're going to use this more than anything else but know that there is a twelve inch and a quarter available also the twelve inches what you would use if you are making a larger Mariners compass so what makes the add a quarter unique is on the underside of the ruler is a lip and that lip is a quarter of an inch from the edge so that when you're trimming the paper piecing you will get a perfect quarter of an inch when they came out with this tool totally changed everything I suddenly loved paper piecing without it yeah not so much the next thing is the rotary cutter I would prefer a 28 millimeter rotary cutter what I would prefer is the ergonomic Olfa 28 millimeter rotary cutter but that's no longer available they discontinued it for reasons unknown to all quilters in the universe also stopped making it so instead you have the normal straight handle 28 millimeter I shall make a plea to everybody to please write otha and to tell them to start making the ergonomic 28 millimeter again because we miss it so much the next thing is the paper so I like to use one of the papers this is the one that I'm Carol Dole foundation paper it is a recycled a light weight paper that you can see through enough it tears away beautifully it runs through your copy machine so something like this some people like to use regular copy paper go for it it's okay it'll dull your needle a little bit I'll make it a little harder to take the paper off but that's okay you'll be paper piecing everything will be good the mini clover iron this is really important having that small item that you can get to the scenes with to press them really nice is important now keep in mind you can do it with your thumbnail you can finger press and the cool thing about that is you know where it's at it's always right here you can do that but especially with a New York beauty with those long points having the clover mini iron is going to make it so that the fabric lays flatter now in the clover mini iron is this piece of plastic with the piece of metal on top and they call that an iron holder and it's not it doesn't work so what you really want to do is get yourself a mug a nice big mug that you can set the iron in just like that you're gonna want to have some Mary Ellen's best press or a spray sizing of your choice I like the Mary Ellen's because it doesn't stick to my iron when I'm starting and with paper press paper piecing I'm pressing from the top side of the design so I like that it the iron doesn't stick and it doesn't leave any residue last thing is just gonna be a standard um ruler so we're gonna use this for doom to do some marking when I come back we're gonna look at the designs and I'm gonna give you some helpful tips to change your design just a little bit so that all of your blocks will turn out just the right size so here is a basic New York beauty block this is the one that we're gonna make and you see how and how perfect it is I mean honest to Pete it's a perfect ten and a half inch size and it's not because I pieced it perfectly or I pressed it perfectly it's because I have a little trick and this is the little trick here is my New York Beauty design so this could be any New York Beauty design what I want to show you is to add an eighth of an inch all around the outside perimeter of the entire block so I'm gonna take my ruler just to show you what this would look like and add an eighth inch to this side turn around and a pinch to this side and by adding this eighth of an inch to the outside perimeter of all of the edges of the block this will give you fudge factor you'll be able to finish your block spray sizes and then trim it down this extra eighth of an inch which actually is a quarter of an inch all the way around makes all the difference in the world so this is the outside perimeter so on the outside of the quarter circle the outside of the arc the outside of the paper piece the outside all the way around of the background piece so when you're looking at what your papers will look like so this is the paper piecing section here I have added that eighth inch to the two outside perimeters on the arch I added the eighth inch to the outside perimeters and these are the three pieces that you do usually with freezer paper so um this is the background piece all the way around the outside perimeter and on the bottom of the corners circle so that is the tip that I have to give you so that your New York beauties will turn out the exact size next we're gonna talk about some color choices so I want to show you some color options some of the blacks that I've made so that you have some idea maybe how you want to go ahead picking out the colors for your well the quote that I'm working on now is let's call it eclectic I'm just kind of pulling all the pretty fabrics that I have out of my stash and making lots of New York Beauty blocks to make myself a really cool New York beauty so here is some of the colors I like use and sometimes a solid or fabric on the background the points I always on the points want to have a high contrast if I'm gonna work so hard to get those points I wanted everybody to know that I've worked really hard to get those points and that they're all perfect here's another one with this one I use those two colors the two greens to give it a little bit of dimension on the points love this really wild on the outside so just a few more this I love this fabric one of my all-time favorite from Westminster so from here I pulled out some of the colors so when this multicolored is some teal and some green and some tan and some yellow so using one of the fabrics to pull out the colors this is wild look at this so here we have some wild and crazy prints up here and here I've again used high contrast and this is done with stripe I think it's really cool the way the technique that I use for paper piecing my points you get these really great lines from the stretch you wouldn't expect that to happen but with my technique it does so there's just a few of them now I want to show you something that I'm planning so here is one of the ones that I'm planning I use this multicolored fabric and I found some cool colors in there so this will be my arch so this will be my quarter my little quarter circle my arch these two will be my points and that'll be my big background another one this one's so cool love black and white pin loops actually that's wrong I wanted the black and white pin down up there so this again is the cool one with all the colors and this fabric will be the large section in the background with all those really cool ladies in it and then the last one will be with a butterfly I'm going to show you how to perfectly cut that out so you can fussy cut the butterfly and not have to worry about it stretching using a black and white pin dot and these are the two that'll be my colors next we're going to start the paper piecing process this is the paper piece arch that I'm gonna do now I make copies of these and this does have that center line for the two tone points I'm not gonna do those only because it's a little bit more time-consuming so I'll just skip them but here they are I've got that eighth inch added to the two outside edges I've got three of them here I'm just gonna cut out my papers and those are my arches now I need to have the fabric so I'm gonna do this with two fabrics the trick I have for you in the way that I pay per piece is that we're gonna do this with strips we are not gonna cut out triangles and when you're not gonna cut out rectangles we're gonna use strips but how big of a strip do I need to cut the what you want to do is measure the entire line of the point not measuring the point from point to point but on that so line that's where you want to set your ruler right here and you want to start the measurement a quarter of an inch past the cup line of the arch so that's the cup line of the arch start the measurement here and go all the way up and then add another quarter of an inch so the measurement is four inches and I'm gonna add that quarter on the top and the bottom so four and a half inches for this paper piecing I need strips that are four and a half inches wide so here's my fabrics I only have a four inch ruler that's okay it's paper piecing and with paper piecing you don't need that precise cutting so I'm gonna go yeah that looks like about a half-inch to me so this is gonna be your Oren a half inch strip put that to the side so these are the two strips that I'm gonna use and for this one the orange is going to be my point and the green is going to be my background so I'm gonna put them right sides together the orange and the green the orange is my point the green is my background so when I start paper piecing I'm gonna lay the paper piecing design and the paper itself on the green side you want to start with the background fabric this is the wrong side of the green fabric wrong side being if you think it's not the right side it's okay with me if it were but here is the wrong side of the green and here is my line and if I fold this back you'll see that I am um maybe a half inch from the edge and I'm running it generally parallel to the edge of the fabric so there is my line I'm gonna put a couple of pins in there so from here I can go to my sewing machine so now we're at our sewing machine ready to sew so I've got my pieces that I'm gonna sew when you're doing the sewing you're putting the paper under the machine and then the fabric is out here to the left my machine is set up with a 2.0 stitch lengths so I lower that stitch length a little bit and I'm gonna sew on that line that's an idea of paper piecing sewing on the line no with the process of paper piecing the first piece is the odd guy all the rest of them just go the exact same steps but the first ones a little bit different so I have my line sewed the next step is to trim off the excess I told you that what I lined it up I was about 1/2 an inch and that was about what it was now I'm gonna use my add a quarter and that little lip is on the bottom that lip is gonna just buck right up to the folded piece of paper and I trim that off now unfold the paper flip it over no take your top piece and bring it forward this is what we want to press so I'm gonna grab my hot iron from all the way over here yeah all the way over there you don't want your hot iron here because then you're gonna touch it and it's a hot iron keep your hot iron all the way over there so that you don't accidentally hurt yourself we don't want quilting to be a dangerous sport so I'm just gonna press that and yes I am pressing it while it's even on top of my cutting surface that's okay it's not gonna hurt your cutting surface if I took it and touched it down then it might be a problem but we just won't do that so we've pressed that now we flip it back and spin it I need to cut off this extra piece because I need to use that for piecing here's my main trick instead of trimming that off at a diagonal and then having a piece of fabric that's at a strange angle don't do it just trim it off straight push that away later on we'll cut that at a diagonal for this section I want to fold back on my neck so line remember I'm skipping those so I'm going to sew on need to fold on that so line first I need to tear this little bit of paper right here from the edge so that I can fold it and this is so funny this is the card that comes with the add a quarter ruler use that little piece of card it's the perfect card stock weight to do place this on the next sew line and fold it back over top of that card now using your Abba quarter ruler again you are not going to cut that off on the diagonal yet you're going to first cut it off straight so that when I go to use this orange piece again I will have that straight edge to work with I won't have to be worrying about messing with an angle then come and do your diagonal fold card on the way and flip it over this is the angle that I just cut so this is where I'm gonna place my next piece so going back to my green piece I've got this look that's not the side I cut distance aside got that straight edge that I just cut gonna place that right over top of it flip it over and go to the sewing machine now I'm gonna start off of the paper so even with a straight line and when I come up to the point I'm gonna continue to Seoul all the way off right there you name surface and it is important that you have your machine kind of set up like this with your sewing machine here your ironing and cutting surface right here your iron over there in a safe distance if you have to get up to the ironing board that would make this process take way too long so we're gonna press this flip it over again my next sew line is this line here so I need to tear this little bit of paper first using my card lay the card on the line pull back on the card line up for the straight cut first and then the angle so we're gonna continue that process but now I want to show you how I really do it there is no way I make one arch at a time it's not that I'm trying to rush through quilting you know how much I love to quilt I'm not trying to rush through it I'm just trying to be efficient so that I can make more quilts and buy more fabric pretty much as the way things work so I've prepared a couple of other ones to do I'm gonna show you how I chain pieces so starting with this one I'm gonna lay down my next piece I'm gonna set that right here and get it ready this is another one I did the first section already I'm gonna get him ready use my light blue fabric lay it down and then another one that I prepared same idea so I like to stack my little ones that are not using here and these are the ones I am using when I'm on a roll and I know I'm not gonna get interrupted in my studio I'll do six or seven of these at a time so it works so I'm gonna take this to the iron to the sewing machine gonna again start off the paper and this time so all the way to the point and stop with your needle in down position grab your next piece starting off the paper so I can chain pieces chain piecing is something we already do well why can't it be done in paper piecing do you know the advantage is paper piecing it saves time and thread and so that's gonna save money so you can buy more fabric so this is um oops I'm gonna line that up again everything about chain piecing is good so it should also be good for people when you're doing paper piecing as I get to the end of this one I want to take the one that I started with back here which I have up here there it is pair of scissors gonna cut him off the backside gonna go through the same steps of pressing flip it over do that little tear at the point use your card back on the next sole line all right if I'm not losing all my parts there we are using the add a quarter cut the straight edge first then the angle I'm gonna line up my green fabric remember I told you I just leave these here there's my green fabric just to wait in the for me line that up on that edge I just cut and chain piece man I'm gonna do one more cut off the backside flip it over press trim so we need to tear that little bit off the point first leave a card on your neck so line cut the straight edge first and then D angle that over now I need my orange fabric right here maybe lunch fabric down on the seemly or the cut that you just made go to your sewing machine and I would continue that process taking the water off the backside that are done adding the strip to it and go all the way around until they're all done and you don't get confused because all your fabrics are just kind of stacked right here you know where they're at so when we come back the arches will be done we'll be pressing in trimming and taking off the paper so now my arch is all pieced I just want to show it to you from the backside everything looks good these ones extend farther than they need to be now it's time to spray size it why do we need to spray size it because these are going to be cut on an angle I'm going to be taking the paper off and I don't want the fabrics to stretch now there's some you'll sometimes see instructions that will tell you to stitch around the edge and leave the paper in until the black is finished for me that just doesn't work and it's just not necessary if we use a little spray size on it it's going to secure all those fabrics so I won't have to worry about it so I'm gonna give it a nice long nice a lot a lot of spray sizing and use a nice hot iron and I'm gonna take my time and press this all really really dry everything looks really dry now she said that up so wouldn't it bored you to death but that took quite a while to get that all spray sized so that it's gonna be very secure now I'm gonna trim it so I'm gonna go to my cutting surface I'm gonna use just might add a quarter ruler cuz it's in my hand and I'm gonna trim this to that eighth inch bigger than the original design remember how we drew that on drew mice trim my straight edges first and then I'm gonna trim the arch now you can trim this with a pair of scissors if you'd like I just take my rotary cutter and go along the edge and from that side of the arch and then flip it over and say tada that is like so pretty some about when you get them all trimmed they just look so nice now it's time to take off the papers so you always want to take off the paper in the opposite numbering order that you put them on now this doesn't have numbers but I know I started here and I finished here so now I'm gonna take the paper off carefully folding it back and then pulling the paper out then if you get your finger just underneath that paper you can just get that seam just the slightest little bit of a pull and you'll get the paper to come out from underneath the stitching line I hate it when there's paper left behind there we go all the papers off the backside get these little triangles out but it is ready for the next step in the next step will be curved piecing that next time

Channel: OnPoint-TV and Quilting with Nancy

Views: 65,744

Keywords: quilting, quilt, tutorial, New York Beauty, Nancy Roelfsema, OnPoint, all things creative, quilting tutorials, Add A Quarter ruler, rotary cutter, foundation piecing, paper piecing, Mary Ellen's Best Press

Id: d64xcTQykRo

Length: 24min 4sec (1444 seconds)

Published: Thu May 10 2018