16 February, 2007

A Firm Foundation

There's a LOT of paper in here! You may remember my String-X quilt top from a few posts back. It's foundation pieced, and it went together quickly and well. I pieced all of those strings onto a stable, firm foundation; clean newsprint. Actually it's "packing paper" left over from a household move! At the time I was cutting all the papers to size for this project, and stacking them up, I remember some blog chatter re: old sheets vs. muslin for foundations. I didn't pay one bit of attention. I'm listening now! It takes a LOT of time (directly proportional to the amount of paper!) to remove this from the back. It tears away just fine, but I'm sure now that I'd rather not be revisiting every single seam contained in this top! It's a mindless job and I will persevere while talking on the phone or listening to the news for the next few days. Since these quilts will definitely be machine quilted, I will use muslin foundations in the future, the extra fabric layer won't hurt a thing and something that doesn't require removal will save lots of valuable time.
Live and learn!
Life is Good!

8 comments:

His Office, My Studio said...

Thank-you for doing the "live and learn" for me. I wanted to use paper for my next string quilt. Now I will continue to use muslin.

meggie said...

I have not made one of those yet, but will use muslin also. Good tip.
It will be lovely when it is finished.

Judy said...

Your quilts are beautiful! (and so is the puppy! :>) I agree with the muslin for string quilt blocks. It is amazing how great they turn out.

Nancy Near Philadelphia said...

Have never done anything like this; don't do paper piecing either. The removal process sounds tedious. But the blocks are pretty.

Nancy Near Philadelphia said...

Have never done anything like this; don't do paper piecing either. The removal process sounds tedious. But the blocks are pretty.

Beemoosie said...

I haven't gotten this far in my quilting adventures yet! I am working on a sampler quilt and have to figure out paper pieceing! I guess I started the classes at the easy end of the spectrum!

Shelina said...

And wouldn't the paper make your needle not as sharp too? Your strings look pretty, and I'm sure the work will be worth the effort. I haven't paper pieced, or I guess I should say foundation pieced, so thanks for the lesson.

Teodo said...

I'm sure this work has been very hard..but I'm also sure that you are very happy and proud now! It's really nice! I like it! ciao, ciao