Who knew I could quilt?!?

My wonderful admin at work, Winky, was always bringing in these beautiful quilts that she was working on. One of the quilts had this perfectly pieced tiny little square patch in it, and I asked her how in the heck she got the tiny little pattern to be so exact. She told me that she was using a technique called Paper Piecing.

She said that it was pretty straightforward and that I would definitely be able to do it. After months of thinking about it, I was inspired to try it out! I thought I would make Mom a thank you gift for the amazing hand made baby quilt that she did for Grant. I know that she likes the log cabin pattern, so I found some instructions on how to paper piece it here.

She and I have been admiring William Morris fabrics and ideas for a while, and I actually found some Morris inspired, pre-cut fabric strips to work with. I ordered a roll of 40 different strips of fabric. When the roll showed up, it was like Christmas!!!

I used tracing paper to print out the pattern off of the internet, cut my strips to lenght, got out my roll of Scotch tape, and went to work. It only took a few days of working on it every now and then to make one 12" by 12" square - too cool!

I left it unfinished and gave it to Mom to do with what she will. She said that she liked the idea (and the fabrics) so much that she might want to do a whole quilt for her bed with the same squares!!!