Mini Monday: Paper Piecing

On Saturday, the OrlandoMQG hosted a paper piecing workshop with the talented Carolyn Friedlander.   Disclaimer:  most of the photos in this post are from my Instagram ;-)

Carolyn showing her Olive quilt

We were lucky to see Carolyn's quilts in person, including a few made with her new Architextures fabric line due out soon. 

Pattern for workshop

I am a beginner paper piecer at best, so I was a little nervous about keeping up at the workshop.  I needn't have worried.  Carolyn is a very patient teacher, and her explanations and pattern directions are easy to understand.

Quilting with my walking foot

During the class, we paper pieced trees from her Olive pattern.  I wish I had taken pictures of all the different blocks made by our members.  There was such a wonderful variety.  I completely assembled one tree block, finished a second tree, and made progress on a third during the Sew Day workshop.  

Tree Mini

With all the other projects I have going on right now, I knew it would be a while before I finished all four Olive tree blocks and assembled them into a quilt.  I didn't like the idea of shoving this project in a corner as I usually do until I have "free time".  With that in mind, I took the first block made and finished it as a mini quilt.  I had seen something similar during Carolyn's trunk show.

Quilting lines on the back

The tree fabric is a Moda woven; the background is Kate Spain Fandango gifted to me.  I used an orangey shot cotton for the borders along with a scrap piece of linen.  The quilting lines can best be seen on the back which is a Riley Blake fat quarter.  I used a yellowish thread (can't remember name) from Connecting Threads.  Binding still needs to be done, but it finishes at 12"x15".

Shirts pattern by Carolyn Friedlander

I was feeling so confident in my newly acquired paper piecing skills that I purchased Carolyn's new Shirts pattern!  

Thanks Carolyn for sharing your time and talent with us!!!