English Paper Piecing (EPP)

I decided to take some time and make something for myself and I decided to give EPP - English Paper Piecing a try. The quilt that I decided I would make is called Patchwork of the Crosses which was originally made by Lucy Boston. Below is a picture of the original quilt.

I was inspired by my friend Tula Pink to give EPP a try. I am fortunate to live close to Tula and I get to spend some time with her in her studio and get to hang out every once in a while for dinner to chat.  She has made several EPP quilts and has published patterns, but I was particularly interested when I saw her working on a Millefiori Quilt. (Sample Pictured below)

What intrigued me was how Tula fuzzy cut her fabric for EVERY piece.  She also enlarged the templates to make the quilt bigger. This gave me an idea, I could make my templates larger also, then I could make fewer blocks.  I also liked the thought of fussy cutting (Lucy fussy cut the fabrics for her original quilt also).

The Lucy Boston quilt used elongated hexagons with one inch sides. (The elongated hexagon has two angles that are 90-degrees). So, following Tula's example, I enlarged my templates 200% (or 2" sides). Here is a sheet for the 2" hexagons if you want to quilt along. I printed these templates on card stock and cut them out. (These templates are actual size and do not include a 1/4" seam allowance)

Next was to choose my fabric. I know I wanted to do some fussy cutting, so I grabbed my stack of Jinny Beyer border print fabrics. These lend themselves well to fuzzy cutting.

I used template plastic to make a template to position on my fabric, traced around it and the cut out the fabric. (NOTE: I traced on of the hexagons from the sheet above, then added 1/4" on all sides to make my cutting template.) I will go over in more detail in my next blog post on how I cut my fabrics.

So far I have 3 blocks cut and in the process of assembly.

I hope you sew along with me and make your own quilt.  I will post templates for the setting and joining squares when I get to that point in the top assembly.  Have fun !