Doctor Who-A-Long update

Now that my machine is talking to me again I made some progress on my paper pieced blocks for the Doctor Who-A-Long hosted by Whims and Fancies and Trillium Design on flickr here.  I struggled with this spaceship block.  There are a lot of tiny seams in centre but I do love how the colours turned out in this one.

This wolf along with K-9 are my favourites so far.  Those teeeth are cool - I love how Soma's design made them so pointy! That's 5 out of 6 released blocks completed so far.  If it wasn't absolutely pouring out of the heavens outside I'd take a photo of all 5.

I'm loving this project.  It is challenging and my paper piecing skills are getting better, slowly but surely!

Linking up to Finish it up Friday (a late finish I know but I really feel a sense of achievement on this block after my sewing meltdown and all!) and

Paper Piecing

For some reason I find paper piecing really hard - It's headwrecking.  I constantly seem to have pieces too small even though I check flipping them back and forward, over and back and it is so wasteful of material.  But I figured out why I find it so difficult.  I'm using ordinary printing paper that is thick and hard to see through.  So when I place my piece of fabric on the back I'm not stitching where I thought I'd be and then when I fold the fabric back to cover my shape its too small.  So in lieu of having any purpose made foundation paper I'm cutting bigger fabric pieces!  If anyone has a favourite way of doing this or a favourite paper they use please let me know - I am open to all suggestions. 

Anyhoo practice makes perfect so here's a few photos of how I got on this weekend making Doctor Who blocks for the Doctor Who A Long over at Trillium Design and Whims andFancies.  Over 200 of us have signed up so far.  Here's a link to the Flickr page if you want to follow along.   The first block was the Tardis.

Isn't it cool?  Hard to see how you would make this any other way and I love the result.  Sorry I have no in progress shots of this one I was concentrating so hard I forgot to take photos. 

The other thing about paper piecing for me is it takes so long.  I started on Friday evening just after dinner and didn't finish until well into Saturday.  I had hoped to get both blocks done but not a chance! I was more diligent on the second block and took some photos.  I hope to finish it this week as block 2 is due out next Tuesday. 

I use a pin to keep the first piece of material to the paper - note to self:  must by fabric glue. 

Once sewn trim excess - even doing this I got a lot of bulk in some areas with such tiny pieces sewn so close together to give a curved shape.

Looks kinda funky from the right side until all excess trimmed away at 1/4" seam.

 And voila - unit G completed.

 Had to fudge the ends a bit to cover up shortfall in fabric!  Oh well.   It looks ok next to the remaining pieces.

Now to sew them all together.   Just as well I love Doctor Who.   I keep telling myself it'll all be worth it in the end!

Linking up to

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