Hand pieced blocks

I started my Quiltmaking By Hand class at Purl Patchwork last week. After an exceptionally grueling day at the office, it was nice to sit in a cozy store, surrounded by beautiful fabric, learning a new craft. The construction of hand pieced blocks is quite different from machine pieced blocks. I was happy to learn that precision was not necessary when cutting out the fabric, so long as it was outside of the drawn sewing line. That seems to be my achilles heel in machine piecing. The evil combination of that rotary cutter, rotary ruler and layers of fabric make every block of mine more than slightly imperfect. I always get those hills and valleys in my long strips... but I digress.

I wanted to learn this form of piecing and quilting so I had something more portable. Of course, I find all this incredibly ironic since I just upgraded my sewing machine to some superduper sewing machine that could probably fly a jet plane, but I haven't had time to figure it all out yet... but I digress again.

Anyway, those are the first four blocks I've hand pieced. Six inch blocks. Various fabric from Yuwa, Lecien, Joel Dewberry and Quilt Gate.

To be covered in the next class: triangles.