Paper Pieced Union Jack Mug Rug, Day 4

Now that the five sections, A, B, C, D, and E, have been pieced and the edges trimmed, it's time to join them together to form one large piece.  

The pattern lists the sewing order as:

     A + B

     AB + C

     D + E

     ABC + DE

Don't worry - it's not a math nightmare!  This simply means that you first sew sections A and B together, then you sew the "A+B" piece to "C."  D and E get sewn together, and then you sew all the pieces together, "A+B+C" and "D+E", to make the one piece.  If you want it in mathematical format, (A+B+C)+(D+E) = Paper Pieced Union Flag.

When I trimmed my sections, I included a 1/4" seam allowance on all the outside edges.  I don't know if I should chalk this up to my inexperience with paper piecing, but I wasn't sure which sides of the sections were to be joined.  For example, with sections A and B, would I sew the right side of section A to the left side of section B, or do I sew together the bottom of section A with the top of section B?  It was kinda like a puzzle, arranging and rearranging the sections to figure out which sides would be joined.  Luckily since I was familiar with the Union Jack image, I was able to figure it out, but I might have trouble with future paper piecing projects.

I placed the right/public sides of sections A and B together, with B on top, pinned them in place and stitched on the right side.

The pin didn't steady the pieces very well, and they'd shift when I ran them through the machine.  I ended up using my Clover Wonder Clips to hold them in place, but not before sewing and ripping the AB piece four different times!

Stitching holes on paper pattern.

I cheated a little.  I joined sections D+E before attaching C to AB, just because.

But I did finally attach C to AB.

After attaching DE to ABC, here's what the paper pattern looked like.

And now for the big reveal...

I think it looks awesome!  The layering and angles came out great!

So now that all the pieces are sewn together, it's time to rip away the foundation.  The tutorials I read didn't mention anything about backstitching, and since I wasn't sure if it doing it would cause any problems or not, I decided not to backstitch my sewing lines.  

I will not make the same mistake in the future.  I began ripping the paper away from the fabric, and started ripping from the outside in, but I found when I did that, because I didn't backstitch, the paper would pull on the stitching and start to unravel it.  So I started ripping from the center out.

What's left is a small pile of colorful, ripped up papers.  I think I might rip the pieces even more and make some confetti to celebrate my first paper pieced project!

Hip, hip, hooray!  Hip, hip, hooray!

Next, I make the pieced block into a mug rug!