Prepping for Hand Piecing

There's no Accuquilt Go cutter in my sewing studio. For me, rotary cutting involves rulers for cutting straight edges, or acrylic templates for cutting shapes. Recently, I used a single "Swirling Star" acrylic template to manually cut curved shapes, and I enjoyed it. I especially appreciate the spring-y colors in this pile of scraps. Pretty!

To cut these shapes, I first rotary cut 4-5/8" wide strips that the template would fit onto. Thankfully I tested my plan to cut the templates from a folded (wrong sides together) piece of fabric. Oops! I discovered half of the cut pieces were swirling the wrong way, and had to be discarded - well, set aside for something else. I cut the shapes from two 4-5/8" strips stacked, right sides up.

I marked the acrylic template with the word "up" to remind myself which way to lay it on the fabric so all the swirls would point the same direction. Did you notice the rotary cutter? I found that a smaller 28 mm cutter followed the curves better than my usually-used 45 mm cutter.

Personally, I don't care to mark the 1/4" seam line slots in acrylic templates. When hand piecing, I prefer to sew with a 3/16" seam. To do that I make my own plastic template that's 3/16" smaller, on all sides, than the acrylic template. Then, on the back of the fabric shape, I trace the plastic template to mark the stitching line. It takes three different fabric markers to mark the fabric, depending on the fabric color: a mechanical pencil, or a Sewline Fabric Pencil, or a Clover White Ink Marker.

Also, to hold the fabric piece firmly while I'm drawing the line, I have fine-grit sandpaper under it. It's something like 000. 

For piecing I use Mettler 60/2 thread - white, for this entire project - and a size #9 straw needle. Then, wearing my homemade bottle cap ring pin cushion on the middle finger of my left hand (you can see a peep of it on the far left) and in it, a half-dozen applique pins for pinning the seam lines, I'm set to hand piece. Here goes. 

In my next blog post I'll show you pictures of what I'm making.