Why Not Sew? Quilts – Hand Pieced Quilt Blocks

This post is part of the A Season by Hand series. Find the schedule here.
Full details on sponsors and prizes here.
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a season by hand

Our guest today is Erin of Why Not Sew. Last year Erin hosted a Hand Pieced Quilt Along, so she seemed the perfect candidate for our series. And her work is just extraordinarily cute too. Enjoy!

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I was thrilled when Jennie asked me if I’d like to be a part of their Season by Hand series here at Clover & Violet (love that name by the way!). I love the projects and posts from Jennie and Clara and I was more than happy to participate. Thank you for asking me!

I really enjoy handwork and try to always have something that can be worked on away from the machine.

I keep EPP (English Paper Pieced) hexies and diamonds cut and ready to go.

But I have to say my favorite thing to do is hand piece traditional quilt blocks.

And it’s probably just the quilt nerd in me, but I LOVE the way hand pieced quilt blocks look from the back.

 

Here are the 2 quilts I have finished so far completely sewn by hand from start to finish. The top picture is the first one that I made. The bottom picture is my “pride and joy” as far as quilts go. If you read my blog you will have seen this one a time or twenty. I got interested in hand sewing for reasons sort of similar to Jennie. We were preparing to move and I knew I would be away from my machine and I also knew that I HAD to have some sewing readily available to me. I am so glad I prepared for this because it turns out that we were with out electric for 6 weeks total last summer. Hand piecing fit the bill perfectly. We won’t discuss the rest. I’ll just say that I am not the woman I thought I was and that I love hot running water! Hand work is such a slow enjoyable process. I love that I can look at the blocks in my quilts and remember the conversations that took place while making the blocks. It’s hard to conversate over a loud machine (note, I’m not sure if conversate is an actual word that little red scribble thingy is telling me it probably isn’t.). I also love how I feel more involved with my family when working on my hand projects as opposed to the ones made by machine. I don’t have to go hide away in my sewing area to hand sew. Not that I am opposed to running and hiding once in a while.

A simple and easy way to get started in hand piecing is to cut a bunch of squares, that are the same size, from your scraps or stash. Keep these in a cute container of some sort along with a small acrylic ruler, mechanical pencil, needle and thread. I like hand quilting thread. It’s stronger and I really want the hand projects I put so much time into to last. Now you will always have some hand piecing ready to go and before you know it you’ll have a quilt. I keep a wire basket full of 2.5 inch squares with a small acrylic ruler and mechanical pencil (for it’s sharp tip) together so that when the need to keep my hands busy arises I can whip up four patches or nine patches in a jiff. You may want to include a small pair of scissors and maybe even a thimble. I don’t use a thimble. Sometimes I use a band-aid. I don’t always use scissors. Sometimes I use my teeth. (Please don’t tell my mom…..or my kids). You can also include pins in your little kit. They are helpful, when seams get bulky, to hold everything in place.

My daughter loves to hand piece nine patches too. This is her pile of scrappy nine patch blocks. Aren’t they beautiful?! She wants to make her own quilt for her bed all by hand. Love that!!! I’m showing you these 1. because I am a proud mama and 2. because I often hear people say they don’t have the patience for hand sewing. I’m saying that if a 13 year old can do it, so can you!

So the basics are this.
1. Cut your pieces ahead of time for the blocks you want to make. Organize them into labeled sandwich bags if necessary, like for blocks that aren’t just squares.

 

2. On the wrong side of your fabric use a small acrylic ruler (see through) to mark 1/4 inch away from the edge of the fabric (seam allowance).

 

 

3. Knot one end of your thread, begin sewing with a very small running stitch along drawn line, end your sewing by sewing your last stitch 3 times. This is generally enough for hand piecing.
Easy Peasy!!!
I hope you give hand piecing a try. It is really rewarding. Come by and visit my blog where I have tutorials for each 6 inch block in this quilt. As well as instructions for sashing, quilting and binding. Have fun and Happy Sewing!
xo Erin

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35 Comments

  1. Yay! I was hoping you would post, Erin! My quilt top still needs to be quilted, but now that I’m practicing my hand-quilting on the table runners, I think I’ll be ready to give it a go on my quilt!
    Ps: Your daughter’s blocks are perfect! I’m do glad that she likes to hand-piece as well 🙂

  2. I love EPP hexagons and carry them everywhere with me! I am agog that anyone still hand-pieces traditional blocks – IMPRESSIVE.

    Gotta admit, my eyes got “stuck” more than once at the “six weeks without electric” – I couldn’t even go to a campground that didn’t have electricity! 🙂

  3. I got my start hand-piecing a doll quilt when I was in elementary school, so there will always be a special place for hand sewing in my world. So awesome to see your 13-year-old loves it, too! Keep up the beautiful work.

  4. That quilt is awesome! I recently started EPP thanks to “season by hand”, now Ill have to give hand piecing regular blocks a try 🙂
    A bandaid!? That’s brilliant, especially for the times when I can’t find one of my 6 thimbles!

  5. This is quite an encouraging post about hand quilting. You’ve given great ideas and tips and made it sound like fun, too! You are right that machine stitching is not condusive to conversation. According to Merriam-Webster, conversate is a nonstandard form on converse. It started being used in 1972. I imagine it’s one of those words that will eventually be added to dictionaries just because it’s used. I really like converse better than conversate – besides it has fewer syllables. 🙂

  6. Lovely and inspiring post! lately I have done more hand sewing and now after finishing my octagons I shall start to hand piece squares like these – so cute!
    Sunny wishes from Greece!

  7. Your hand pieced quilt is just beautiful! I am always looking for something to do at night while watching TV so I think I will start this quilt. Thank You for the patterns and inspiration!

  8. I’m really excited about learning hand piecing! Thanks for sharing and I really love your Honey Bee block! Have to try making it:)

  9. Very beautiful quilts. I hand sew some, but prefer to do the actual quilting by hand and machine sew the pieces for the top. This saves me quite a bit of time, since I am often making quilts with a deadline.

  10. wow, hand piecing an entire quilt takes quite some dedication! After making a single block from hexies, I know it’s not for me but Erin’s work is just stunning.

  11. So beautiful !! I enjoy hand sewing…a lot, your post is just the inspiration I needed to push me forward to hand sewing a quilt…. Thank you sharing…:)

  12. I love your sampler. I’m a beginner at English Paper Piecing, and have never tried traditional hand piecing, but that sampler is quite the inspiration. If I ever finish my current project, maybe I’ll give it a try.

  13. My first quilt, many years ago, was hand pieced (and hand quilted!) We used templates to make our fabric shapes which gives you the stitching line first, then the shape is cut out. I was interested to see you stitch into the seam allowance. I find I get the pieces to fit better if I do not sew into the seam allowance. Also doing a back stitch every four or five stitches will strengthen your seam! I find putting in a pin to anchor your finishing point and line up your stitching lines useful too!

  14. Hey Erin…as always, you’re rockin’! I still need to quilt my little quilt…one of these days it will get done. Thank you for sharing your work. xo

  15. Wow, so beautiful! I don’t think I’ve ever read a blog about hand piecing that isn’t EPP, so lovely to read about and see 🙂

  16. I also love to hand piece. I am ready to put the binding on a king size I just finished.
    Your work is just amazing! I love it all! Thank you for sharing. I hope you have inspired more to try this!

  17. This answer is from Kathy Patterson: Every quilter develops their own pressing preferences, but in general, seam allowances should be pressed to one side, towards the darker fabric wherever possible. When hand piecing, it’s easy to do this by finger-pressing, until a unit or block is completed and you’re ready to take your work to the ironing board for a good pressing.

  18. One fourth of one block measures 3 inches so it is perfect block to hand piece instead of trying to sew those tiny pieces with your sewing machine. You sure don’t have to carry a lot of supplies if you decide to try hand piecing! I have this tin with all my pieces cut and ready to take with me whenever I am ready to travel or know I will be waiting somewhere for a while. I think I will have this tin filled up with more blocks ready to sew by hand because I have another new passion-hand piecing! Maybe you will too. This pattern is designed by Cindy Blackburg. If you are interested in trying hand piecing, here is a great blog with lots of tips .

  19. My daughter loves to hand piece nine patches too. This is her pile of scrappy nine patch blocks. Aren’t they beautiful?! She wants to make her own quilt for her bed all by hand. Love that!!! I’m showing you these 1. because I am a proud mama and 2. because I often hear people say they don’t have the patience for hand sewing. I’m saying that if a 13 year old can do it, so can you! So the basics are this. 1. Cut your pieces ahead of time for the blocks you want to make. Organize them into labeled sandwich bags if necessary, like for blocks that aren’t just squares.

  20. Beauty-ful work and wonderful Blog!
    Thank you so much for sharing your awesome talents and gifts. i am Inspired and Impressed!

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