Little flowers and paper piecing tutorial

Hi Friends,
Welcome to my first tutorial...
First up - a pic of the little flowers I have done so far.  In honor of Exuberant Color I'll tell you that I found these rows (while cleaning - a lie!) that were previously made, and decided they would be perfect for the up coming Open House at our Project Linus coordinator's home in May. The quilts to be made for that day's challenge are to be pastel with a neutral - perfect, right?

Four rows of four with spacing white in between.  I'm making another row, so the quilt will end up the right shape... otherwise it'd be a square, and I prefer a rectangle.

You get a little view of the other project on the design wall - the stars and trees are still up there.  I've gotten bored with them, so turned my time to some boobs (not yet photographed) and these little flowers.  Here is where the tutorial starts.

Above is the pattern, on copier paper.  You need 4 of each of these to make one flower.  I know it's kind of blurry - sorry. #1 is the first space to use - (are we learning anything yet?)  Put the petal color onto the other side with the pretty side out....NOT towards the paper. I like to pin #1 onto the paper so I have hands free to align #2.

Put the fabric (in this case white print) onto the back of the #1 fabric - pretty side up and towards the pretty side of the #1 fabric.  Make sure it covers over the seam allowance by about 1/4 inch. Make sure the piece is big enough to flip up and over the seam-to-be to cover all of that #2 space and seam allowance.   Now sew (Use a stitch that makes about 15 stitches to the inch so that you can rip the paper off easily.) on the paper side, on the line between #1 and #2.  Make some back up stitches on each side of the seam line.

 Here is  the seam from the fabric side.

 Now fold back the new part of the seam allowance and cut the darker color just a little smaller than the lighter color... Only cut the seam allowance - we are doing this to keep the darker fabric from showing through the lighter and making a shadow through the lighter color. (DO NOT CUT THE PAPER!!!!!!!!!!!!)

 It kind of grades the seam allowance, too, so there isn't so much bulk.  See here the seam allowance (pink) is smaller than the lighter color seam allowance, and the paper pattern is still in tact.

Now flip the new piece up and press it out to cover the paper.

Flip it over to the paper side, and trim away all the excess - use the cutting line on the paper for a nice clean edge.

Do the same on all the other spots on the pattern... in this case #3 and #4.

 Here is one done of the four needed to make one flower.



Tomorrow I will show you how I put the 4 pieces together to make the flower.  I'm quite proud of the technique I use, which does not rely on a perfect 1/4 inch.

On another note:
I got these car liter bags from my hobby, he works for Yellow Book. Pinned to the ironing board next to the sewing machine, they are the perfect place for snippets and threads. I really am trying to keep the environment cleaner and  picked up.


Sew until tomorrow...
<3s to you all!
Terri