Jenny: Hi everybody, it’s Jenny from the MSQC. And I am here today with Sue Daley. Hi Sue, how are you? Sue: Hi Jenny. Jenny: We are just having way too much fun, way too much fun. So Sue does English Paper Piecing which is a little, way different than regular paper piecing which I can’t wrap my brain around. But the English Paper Piecing, oh my gosh. So I want you to take a look at some of the things we have on our set today because in my mind English Paper Piecing was kind of this, you know it’s kind of like a grandma. Sue: Ya like little hexagons Jenny: Like little grandma flower things and things like that. And look at these projects. So we’ve got this awesome quilt back here. And you’re going to have to tell the names of these things. Do they have names? Sue: Yes, this is Quatro Colour Jenny: Quatra Colour? Sue: Quatro Colour Jenny: Quatro Colour. I might have to translate for you. She’s Australian and she has a bit of an accent. I might have to do a little translations so Quatro Colour. And then this one? Sue: This one over here is from my new line Sundance and it’s called Butterfly Dance. Jenny: Isn’t that just gorgeous? And over here we’ve got a couple of things. Sue: This one up here is called Birds of Paradise. Would you like me to take that down? Jenny: Oh let’s look at it real quick. Sue: Ya ok. Jenny: They’re just gorgeous. They’re beautiful, beautiful quilts and we are actually going to show you how to do some of these things right here. Alright do we have it up and down. Sue: It’s up and down, ya. Jenny: Look at that. Isn’t that just gorgeous? Sue: Lots of different paper piecing techniques on this quilt and some applique, ya Jenny: So much, so pretty. Alright. Jenny: So now that you’ve seen all these fun projects and all the different things you can do because they’re just based on a shape, Sue’s going to show us how to make these and it’s just so much easier than you thought. Sue: It really is, it’s really simple. So first of all I’m just going to take the template out of the bag. So we have our quatro petal template . So the template has your built in seam allowance here and then we have some papers. Jenny: Perfect. Sue: So the paper you can see is smaller than the template. So the template is used for cutting your fabric. So you would just place your template onto your fabric and rotary cut around the outside of your template. Jenny: Perfect. Sue: And then you would have your shape right here. Take a paper Jenny: And because it’s clear you can actually what you’re cutting Sue: You can see through it Jenny: Too yes so if you want to, a certain little thing. Sue: Ya. We’ll take our glue pen and we’re just going to pop our paper on top of our fabric. And we’re just going to glue just inside the edge of the paper. So not right on the very edge, just inside the edge. Fold it, turn it. Jenny: Look, how cool is that? So you never have to actually. It’s not needle turn Sue: No Jenny: It’s just this glue method. It just make it so doable for all of us. Sue: It probably saves me about 75% of preparation time from how it used to be. Jenny: Well it actually makes it, for me it makes it look like I really could do it Sue: Yep, absolutely. Jenny: That’s awesome. Sue: Ok so then we will take a different shape here and I’ll do this one because this is one of the other shapes that goes with that particular block. Jenny: So this is the block we’re making the shapes for Sue: So we’ve done that one and I’m going to glue this one Jenny: And this one actually has four shapes so it has this quatro, is it quatro petal, is that what it’s called? Sue: Yes, quatro petal and a four pointed star and a one inch square. So not too much glue. You don’t want to be too heavy handed with that. Just a little bit. And there we have that little shape. So what we have now is this one and we have this one. And then we have a square that we’ve prepared earlier which will go in the middle. So to sew that together. Jenny: Here we have, why don’t we lay this out so we can see. Give them a look Sue: Ya let’s lay this out Jenny: Because Sue: Let’s put this like this and turn these in this way. Jenny: These go out right like this? Now do you worry about those, those little dog tails? Sue: Those little tails will just sit in and nest in behind, behind the work when you’ve sewn it up. So we don’t have to worry about those. You don’t want to fold those in nice and neat. You want those to just stick out just like that. So that’s how that will look when we sew it together. Jenny: So see this little block here, this is this little block which is this quilt right here. This is all this is are these pieces right here. And I love that. To me that made it really doable. You know when you look at that you’re like, Oh my gosh I could never make that. But all it is is a block at a time. A block at a time. Sue: Absolutely Jenny: And so that makes it really cool. So now though we have to sew them together. Sue: Yep. So what we’ll do is I’ll just take the center piece here, the little square. And I’m going to take one of my quatro petals and lay it on the top. And I’m going to come in from behind so I’m using a milliner’s needle so it’s a long needle. Jenny: So it’s right here, I want to make sure they can see this. So it’s right here, she goes under that fabric like in and comes out at the fold. Sue: Between the fabric and the card there just to lose my knot that I have at the end of my thread so it doesn’t pull away as I try and do my little knicker knot. So I’ve just lined those in there and I’m going to come in for one stitch at the very beginning. Jenny: There we go. Sue: And then I’m going to come in for a second stitch and I’m going to leave my needle in. And there we have the knicker knot. So we have one thread at the front. We’re going to take it under, to the left and to the back. And these two will come forward and under to the right and to the back. Jenny: And what did you call that? Sue: A knicker knot. Jenny: A knicker knot. Sue: Don’t get your knickers in a knot. Jenny: I love it. I love it. Sue: I know, it’s cool. And it does a little figure eight right there. And it locks it off so it doesn’t come undone. And then we’re just going to continue on and sew along that edge. And we’re going to sew our stitches maybe ⅛ of an inch apart, perhaps 1/16 of an inch. Not too close though. You don’t want to be sewing on top of it, you know you don’t want to sew the stitches right on top of each other. There’s no need to do them so closely. So I’m going to sew right along to this edge. And you want to sew straight. You want to sew from the back, this is my back, back to the front this way. And keep your needle straight and so what happens that’s the shortest distance is straight across. And that stops you from seeing the stitches on the right side. Jenny: So that helps the stitches not to show. That’s awesome. Sue: Ya, because when you look at older quilts that’s all you see is those stitches. And it was something that I didn’t want to do because I didn’t want to see those stitches all the time. Jenny: Ya. Sue: So I’m going to get right to that very end. I’m going to do two stitches right at that point there. Two stitches right there. And then I’m going to open that up. And then I want to add Jenny: And honestly wait, let people see this. You, you really, I mean you cannot see the stitches on there. I mean it’s just beautiful. Sue: Thank you. Jenny: You’re like, Thank you. Sue: Thank you. So we want to then add this one in here. But what I’m going to do first of all is I’m going to travel my thread up in behind because I don’t want to keep cutting my thread off. So I’m just going to travel my thread up in behind and bring it up to where I want to sew from next which is this point at the top here. I hold it from that bottom piece. And I want to put this one in here because then I can sew down here and then I can sew my next piece across the top. Jenny: Ok that makes sense. Sue: So I don’t have to keep cutting my thread and restarting, doing knicker knots and things so. I’m just going to do two stitches at the beginning again right there. And then I’m just going to travel down the side Jenny: So that actually really makes sense because you don’t have to cut your thread Sue: No Jenny: You can slide it in under the fabric. You go the way out to the end where you start and you’re not re-knotting and knotting and it will stay Sue: No you’re not. Jenny: Together. That makes perfect sense Sue: The less time you cut your thread, the better you are. Jenny: And just when you are, you go to sew them together you’re just going to fold them Sue: Yes and then you just Jenny: Just right back Sue: Just them all over on themselves. So doing Y seams is not a problem anymore. Everybody shies away from Y seams but with English piecing you can just fold it and bend it and twist it and get it where you need it. And then sew it. Jenny: Ok so once you get your block all done, I mean this looks awesome, but how do you get it all together in the quilt? Sue: Ok so I’ve joined it together, if you look at the quilt you can see we have some elongated hexagons in there which have joined it together. Those little crosses are four elongated hexagons and shaded it from black all the way up to white. So elongated hexagons look like this. And we just piece them together this way. And then we can pop them onto our block here and here all the way round. And then we can join them until they marry up to the quilt. Jenny: Oh, so this, how would this Sue: This one here Jenny: So this would go this way, no Sue: This would go like this. Sorry let’s turn this here like this. He’s going to go in here like that. Oop, sorry like this. Jenny: Let’s get this one out of here. She knows I’m angley challenged. She’s just trying to confuse me. Sue: Ok Jenny: There we go. Oh, yes. Ok. Sue: So they come together so you have all these little stars, all these little crosses happening in between your blocks Jenny: Ya. Oh. So, so cool. Sue: One block and a cross, one block and a cross. Jenny: Oh it’s perfect, perfect. That just makes it so easy and doable. I just love it. Sue: Ya, ya it’s just so portable. I love it too. Jenny: Well it’s just been wonderful having you here. Sue: Thank you. Jenny: Thanks for joining us. Sue: It’s been fun. Jenny: So we hope you enjoyed this tutorial on the easy way to English paper piece with Sue Daley and the MSQC.