Originally written Feb 25, 2024
I’m not sure what inspired me to undertake this challenge. But I had an idea for a quilt. Two decapitated Greek statue torsos done by paper piecing. Of course, I doubted anyone had a quilt pattern for sale for something like this. So I had to make one of my own.
A software called Quilt Assistant was actually the perfect tool for the job! With it was able to create paper piecing patterns from two images.
The project files I for Quilt Assistant can be downloaded here:
A little tangent: this software is the kind of thing I dream of creating someday: it solves a specific yet general-enough problem in a cool way, AND it’s free!
After creating the patterns, I went to choose a limited palette of colors and made a trip to my local fabric store. Overall, designing wasn’t an easy process, but it sure as hell did not get easier from there!
Quilt Assistant has a great printing option where you can print out paper-piecing patterns, similar to ones you might get from an online seller. As is true with all artistic media, there is more than one way to do it.
You can print out the piecing patterns on regular paper, sewing directly through it, and rip the pattern away when you’re done. Or — this is the option I went with — you can somehow print the pattern on freezer paper. What’s great about freezer paper is that it has a waxy side. What isn’t great about it is that it does not go through a printer on its own. So my workflow went something like this:
- Cut a piecing of freezer paper down to the size of a sheet of printer paper (a little bit smaller so it doesn’t snag during printing).
- Iron the freezer paper to a sheet of regular printer paper by putting the waxy side against the regular paper.
- Put the paper + freezer paper combo in your printer, making sure the print will be applied to the non-waxy side of the freezer paper, not the regular paper.
- Once printed, peel away the freezer paper, and cut out the pattern pieces. You can reuse this sheet of paper for more pattern pieces a few more times!
- Take the printed and cut-out pattern pieces, and carefully yet firmly crease them along the pattern lines using a ruler.
- Start piecing! I found a great video explaining the process here
Freezer paper piecing is great for times when you need to make multiple blocks using the same piecing pattern. In my case, this was not happening. I could have saved a lot of time by just printing out the pattern on regular paper, but I did find that ironing the pattern directly onto the fabric (instead of using pins) to be very easy, especially for the finer-detailed sections.
Once the pattern pieces are finished, they themselves can be pieced together to start forming the final image! Here’s an example of the partially-pieced male torso, where three missing pattern parts are not yet completed.
After a grueling number of months sewing, ripping seams to undo mistakes, and questioning every decision I made leading up to this, I had the torsos done!
I couldn’t find any pictures of the basting or quilting process, but the size of the quilt made it exceptionally easy compared to my other projects. For quilting I decided to try to ‘trace out’ the contours of the bodies using straight lines and angular patterns, trying to evoke an ancient Greek motif. On the background, I did a jumping-wavy pattern to try to look like clouds. It didn’t come out as I had hoped and looks a little childish.
After this, I put on the binding. I wanted to try to give a 3D window effect on the binding: the top and right side would be lighter, and the bottom and left would be darker. I ended up using the same pattern of fabric for this using two different available colors. Unfortunately I think that effect is lost. Writing this up about a year later (Feb 2024) after finishing it in March 2023 (when I will mark this post as ‘posted’), I had totally forgotten about this until I started thinking consciously about how I did the binding process.
Lastly, as an art piece, I put a hanging sleeve on it, and found the coolest invisible magnetic hanger system, so it hangs on the wall with nothing extra showing.
Despite the challenges faced and creative decisions I now don’t really like, I do actually like this quilt. It was incredibly ambitious for me to undertake at my skill level, much like the queen-size Labyrinth quilt. However, much like that project, I ended up with a satisfactory result and I learned much more than I could have imagined.
Problems and Lessons
- Fabric choices:
- I should have chosen a different fabric for one of the dark colors. You can see on the bottom left, in the leg of the female torso, how that dark fabric has a lighter spot on it. This would be fine for large pieces like that, but for small detailed pieces, a mistake could easily be made where only the lighter color in the fabric pattern is showing.
- There needed to be a better intermediate color choice in the palette. The spectrum of colors chosen makes an abrupt jump, seen where the shoulders meet the top of the chest on both torsos.
- I could have chosen a better background that better contrasts the lighter colors of the torsos. You can see at the shoulder area how the light color grays can blend in too easily with the background.
- The people at the fabric store are always great at helping me choose fabrics for a pattern. They talked me out of using all solid colors, which is fine, but sometimes fabrics don’t need patterns. I quite like the look of the modern art-quilt that uses solid colors.
- Freezer paper: For a one-off pattern like this, I would have had a much easier time using regular paper and disposing of it, rather than trying to make reusable patterns I may never actually reuse.
For now, I’ll leave this piece as is. I think it looks quite nice above the head of my bed!