"From this day to the ending of the
world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood
with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so
vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they
were not here..."
-Henry V, William Shakespeare
Thanks for sticking with me as I break up Day 3 into two posts. It was getting rather long and I had to take a break from writing, as I'm sure you did from reading.
Now, a few comprehensive notes here about some of the techniques I used for the paper piecing. The tutorial at Connecting Threads listed a magazine subscription card in their list of tools. This is used to help keep the sewn lines straight when you fold the paper pattern back before trimming your seam allowance. I found that when I folded the pattern back, the perforations were enough to keep it straight. My guess is that if you have a perforated line that is shorter than the subscription card, as was the case in the tutorial example, the card does help to keep the folded edge straight, so I continued to use the card with all of my lines, just to get into the habit of using it.
The other thing I need to mention is the placement of the fabric. In my previous post I mentioned that the fabric pieces needed to be large enough to cover the pattern area plus an additional 1/4" or so for the seam allowance. In several of the paper piecing tutorials I read through, they tell you to line up the edges of your pieces before sewing the line.
I'm not sure why, maybe it was because I was working with fabric scraps with odd angles, or maybe I just don't understand yet the intricacies of paper piecing, but I found that even if there seemed to be enough fabric, after I sewed it down and opened it up, it would come up just a touch short. After awhile I ended up using large pieces of fabric just so that I was sure the pattern was covered. This wastes a lot of fabric, but at least my areas were completely covered.
After getting through that hurdle I sped through the four sections, A, B, D, E. As I followed the numbers, building each block with a layer of red, white, and blue, I thought about how Union Jack came to be in its present form. Time to hop aboard the TARDIS!
Back in the late 16th century, England and Scotland were their own separate kingdoms, with their own separate flags. England, ruled by Elizabeth I, flew St. George's Cross, a red cross on a white background.
The flag of Scotland, which was ruled by James VI, was St. Andrew's Cross, a white saltire on a field of blue.
Elizabeth died in 1603, leaving no children, so the crown went to James, now named James I of England and Ireland. A new flag combining the flags of England and Scotland was created in 1606 and was referred to as the "Union Flag."
A second Union Flag was created 1801 after the joining of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland. It adds Ireland's Saint Patrick's Saltire, a red x-shaped cross on a white background, to the Union Flag.
And this is the flag design still used today. And the same design that this paper piecing pattern is based on. And the same design that has stymied me once again.
All the pattern sections other than C were made up of several layers of fabric. But section C had only one piece to it. Was I supposed to sew a piece of fabric to the pattern, following the lines on the paper like I had with all the other sections? Or was supposed to just cut a piece of fabric with the dimensions of the pattern? Or was I supposed to do something else entirely?
I decided to just sew the fabric to the pattern. Seems
kinda silly to do for one section of fabric, but I figured it'd be best
to keep it as similar to the rest of the pattern sections as possible.
Now that all the sections are sewn up, it's time to take a look at all of them together before I sew them up.
Let's not forget to clean up the outside edges!
Much better!
Next, we sew all the sections together!
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