Red Pepper Quilts: The Daisy Chain Quilt - An English Paper Piecing Project ~ Part 1

Daisy Chain English Paper Piecing project | Red Pepper Quilts 2016

For some time now I have been wanting to start another English Paper Piecing (EPP) quilt project. I say another for this is not my first EPP project. Unfortunately I failed to finished my first EPP project (started in 2007) and after some time of it sitting around I passed it on to a quilter keen to work with my UFO. So this is a fresh start.

A slow sewing project does not exactly suit the otherwise fast paced nature of my blog but I thought that if I occasionally show you a progress update that would work. I am allowing myself most of this year to complete this project; no pressure behind the scenes hand sewing. It may cut into my knitting time but that was a sacrifice that I was happy to make.

This project was bursting my head, it was all I could think about. Obsessed. I already had a starting set of papers (purchased from Sew and Quilt at the Quilt Festival in Birmingham back in August) and preparation finally began in mid January. As you can see I spent quite some time cutting fabrics and preparing papers. I am glue basting! What a time saving revelation. I am using a Sewline Water Soluble Glue Pen and Sewline Refills to baste fabric on papers and it is working a treat. (Here's a great tutorial for glue basting).

I have made quite a few Daisy Flower units in the last few weeks - 80 at last count. I am working my way through my fabric stash, choosing predominantly small scale fabrics for these small patchwork pieces. Some fabrics have been fussy cut, some flower units have petals that are all the same, and some flower units have petals with two different alternating fabrics.

I have also worked my way through a bunch of different needles and have finally settled on Jeana Kimball's Foxglove Cottage Betweens Quilting Needles - Size 10. They are short and thin sewing needles which allow me to whip stitch by just catching a few threads of the fabrics so that the stitches are not visible on the front of the units. I am consciously making an effort to relax my hold of the fabric; to not grip the fabric/paper pieces with such great intensity when stitching, for this will quickly lead to a sore hand, wrist, arm, shoulder, neck, and headache. Ask me how I know.

That box of ready to go pieces is now empty. My order for more papers has arrived and I am going to spend another day or so cutting fabrics and glue basting. I can then settle and sew slow in the evenings to my heart's content. My target is for 3 finished units a day. I haven't yet set a target date for completing the quilt top (I haven't even calculated how many I units I will need) and I haven't yet made a final decision on how to join the Daisy Flower units, although a likely solution is with a diamond shape.