A little bit of paper piecing... for a change.

So if you haven't noticed... I kind of like paper piecing. I'm drowing in wips right now, so it's nice to do a little paper pieced block in between to kind of clear the mind and then prepare myself to go back to the mammoth task of quilting those wips.

While I was floating about, looking at fabulous paper pieced patterns, I recently came across a freebie program called Quilt Assistant - which helps design quilt blocks and paper pieced blocks. Ooh does that not sound like fun? It's a rather steep learning curve to use it (well for me anyways, but I'm so not great at reading manuals before trying something out). So I'd um highly recommend you read the guide first. It does make things much easier.

So here is my first attempt at drafting and then sewing a paper pieced block! I went with something simple (and has likely been done before!) but I'm happy with how it looks!

The thing I love about paper piecing - look how tiny those rays get as they go into the middle and yet I didn't have to fiddle around with itty bits of fabric. I was keen to see how it would look all finished so I used great whopping chunks of fabric! Scraps be damned! That just means more fabric for paper piecing!

Oh and here's one of my possibly favourite things about Quilt Assistant - besides the fact it lets me make paper pieced patterns without having to actually draw them out on graph paper. I can play around with colours with just a few clicks! Look at this!

Oh the possibilities are endless! As you can see, I made the bottom left one. Such a simple design and so quick to make. I think these blocks would make cute cushions don't you?

Right enough of my showing off. Just pleased something I drew up on the computer actually worked in fabric!

Here are some blocks other people drew up on the computer that worked beautifully for me!

I'm calling this block Take Two. But Tiffany who designed it (t.anne quilts on Flickr) calls it Bird on a Star. Much more poetic. It's only Take Two for me as this was my second attempt at this block. This one was fully paper pieced rather than with those dreaded y-seams.

And here is one of the sweet blocks from the Garden Party blog hop.

I did have to unpick and resew a few seams here. Mainly because I sewed the butterfly's body in upside down.Yep. Smart huh? I was tempted to leave it and see if I could get away with it but it was driving me crazy! Much happier with it resewn. How on earth would a butterfly fly upside down otherwise?!

Besides all the paper piecing madness, I did give some attention to the XOXO quilt and did a bit more quilting on it.

My goodness that thing is HEAVY! I'm still not sure what I'm doing with all the quilting but I'm hoping it'll just all come together easily.

Now I'm off to play some more with Quilt Assistant instead of doing boring things like tidying the house. Hello, my name is Kristy and I am a procrastinator. ;) Hope you're having fun procrastinating too!

Linking up with Manic Monday over at SewHappyGeek and to Sew Modern Monday at Canoe Ridge Creations. :)