Strip Tease Quilt

Don’t you just love the name of this scrap quilt?  Strip Tease!  Who says quilting can’t be a bit fun and sassy?

Whether you are new to paper piecing or have done it forever, you will find this process not only fulfilling (as you watch your scrap bin go down) but also very relaxing.

This is the easiest paper piecing pattern out there and a must for any new paper piecer!

FIRST STEP:  Grab your scraps!

The first step for me was to grab my stash and cut stuff into strips.

This is a very small portion of the scraps I have.  You probably can identify many of these fabrics in the finished scrap quilt.  It is always so rewarding to look at a scrap quilt and see fabrics that were used in other quilts through the years.

STEP 2: Choose your Base

For paper piecing, you use a base paper.  For this type of thing, I just made the largest square I could on a piece of copy paper then drew a diagonal line across from one corner to the other. Be sure to make a perfect square unless you intend on using a rectangle.

I also recommend tracing the pattern on the other side as well, this will help you to line things up and eventually cut out the square form when you have all your scraps sewn down.

Step 3: Time to Sew!

The colors, patterns and so forth that you decide to use for your quilt is totally up to you.  Also, you can choose to use all the same width of fabrics or to vary them.  For me, I chose one fabric for the middle of each block but then went totally random after that. You will also see that I was not as concerned about making my strips perfect down the line from corner to corner.  I wanted this quilt to be truly random.

Here you can see the dark blue I used for the middle.  Remember, when you sew using paper piecing, the first piece of fabric is sewn with the right side up,  Each fabric scrap after that is sewn with the right sides together.

Another tip is to shorten up your stitches when you do this, it will help you to remove the paper after you have completed each block.

If you want more information about how to paper piece, there are tons of resources on the internet.  I really like how easily Craftsy explains it here.

Start adding your strips to complete each block, pressing them over before each new one.

When you have covered your entire square, you can turn your block over and finish it by cutting it on the lines you transferred to the other side.  I like to use a different rotary cutter for this process as the paper can dull a good, fabric cutting blade.

As you can see, the lines are easy to see and trimming these to a perfect size is a breeze!

Trim on the line and flip your block over to see how perfect it is!

I love how they look at this point.  Just don’t forget to remove the paper before you start sewing them together.  Because you have used a short stitch, simply fold and rip!

Step 4: Putting it all together

I usually use a design board as I go to place the blocks.  This way I can mix them around for best effect as I go.

As you can see, the paper was still on at this point.  I promise that I remembered to take it all off before I started assembling the quilt!

I also decided to do some fun border work for this one.  By changing the direction of my paper piecing, I was able to make a cute, scrappy, piano key type border that fits this quilt perfectly.

By adding the purple inner border, both types of blocks were properly showcased.

Final Step: Quilting

Originally, I thought of doing a bunch of random, custom quilting to try to create a secondary pattern, but as soon as I saw the scrappy, random goodness of this quilt, I knew that would be futile.  There was already enough going on!  So I chose an E2E pattern with curves to offset all the straight lines called: Bramble – Lorien Quilting from Urban Elementz

I really love how this quilting fit with the overall design of this scrap quilt.

If you are looking for a Christmas Scrap buster, check out this Christmas Gift Quilt too!

So, what is next on my list?  In a couple weeks, I will be attending the Dallas Quilt show, so be prepared to see another post showcasing my favorites!