English Paper Piecing - A scrap busting Try Something New Every Month Project

Ok, so it might be halfway through June but here is my May 'Try Something New Every Month' project. The theme for this month was 'handwork' and in a rare fit of compliance I decided to go with it and have a go at English Paper Piecing.

I'm going to blame my tardiness on a combination of technical issues (my cloud is full which apparently doesn't make it rain but does make it hard to get photos off your phone and onto your computer.... I know - Yawn! Sorry!...), the glacially slow progress of my hand sewing and the fact that I had lots of other (frankly more interesting and instantly gratifying) projects to sew.

This was, first and foremost, a scrap busting project. I seem to be incapable of throwing away even small scraps fabric and thought that this would be a great way to use some of them up. I genuinely thought that I was starting small with this project - it was the first time that I'd tried English Paper Piecing so it made sense to keep it small and simple right? The theory was good, but unfortunately it takes a LOT of 1" hexies to make even a rather small piece - I mean just LOOK at that pile of cardboard templates!

I was pretty pleased with my final patchwork, but it still wasn't nearly big enough and I didn't fancy taking the rest of the year to complete this so I went and sewed a big yellow boarder around it before hand quilting the top sewing it into a footstool.

Just don't look too closely at my hexies please or you'll see the wonky joins and gaps. You know how you hear quilting people say 'nice points!'? No one is ever going to say that to me.....

Once I had my footstool cover it needed stuffing (and this is the really brilliant scrap busting part) it's also the part where you begin to think that I might actually be crazy.. BUT. If you've been here before, or follow me on Instagram, you'll know that I spend a lot of my 'free' time sewing up felt dress up masks which I sell on Etsy and at local handmade markets in Melbourne. Anyway, the point is that cutting out all of those felt masks results in lots of tiny scraps which I don't seem to be able to throw away. I'm honestly not sure why I didn't just put them in the bin except for that I had vague, half-formed ideas about using them to stuff a pillow or something at some point. So; this is what a year's worth of scraps looks like (and how a 5 year old looks when you let her tip them all over the dining room floor and roll around in them):

https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/Stitchandwillow?ref=hdr_shop_menu&section_id=16893907

And this is how my paper pieced, felt scrap filled, labour of love footstool looks when finished. I'll admit to feeling a little smug, If only because I actually finished the thing! I'm not sure I'll do any more English Paper Piecing, at least not in the near future, but despite all my grumbling I did rather enjoy this (possibly because I gave me an excuse to sit on the sofa and plow through another season of Mad Men!)