Paper Piecing Push

Next week I'll be the presenter at a Modern Quilting Club, sponsored by a local quilting store.  We're covering one chapter a month from Lucky Spool's Essential Guide to Modern Quilt Making,  and members can volunteer to be presenters.  Last month we covered  color.  

This month, I volunteered to cover paper piecing.   There was some early discussion on skipping this chapter, since some of the people thought paper piecing wasn't modern.  Hmm.  I quickly volunteered, and now I need to make some knock-your-socks-off paper piecing projects.

Somehow I boxed myself into a corner with only one week to prepare, so I'm on a paper piecing push to make one quilt, one apron, and a pin cushion.

This is the inspiration for the quilt.  A friend bought me this gorgeous collection of fabric at Sew Special in Maui, on her recent Hawaiian vacation.  

I was eyeing the stack on her sewing table during a recent visit.  I thought it was about the most beautiful fabric I'd ever seen, but I didn't say anything because we were talking about other things.  Then she turned the conversation to the fabric and asked if I liked it.  Yes!  When she said she bought it for me, I was beyond excited.

We'd been talking about this new book of her's, and the Chinese Lanterns quilt she's doing.  I also love Chinese Lanterns!  And I was on the lookout for an exciting paper pieced quilt pattern.  I decided to buy this book, and use the fabric she gave me, since it's about as modern looking as can be.

We took the stack and her copy of the book with us when we went shopping at a suburban quilt store.  

The lanterns are made with three fabrics - a solid (or something that reads as a solid), something for the central band, and one other (my circles).  Oh, and then there's lots of white fabric around the blocks.  I wanted to use the same fabric for the central band on all of the lanterns, to tie them together.  

There were several fabrics there that would have worked, but this stripe is the one I bought. When I got it home and laid it out like this, I hated it.  Don't know why I bought it, since I don't like stripes and I don't like brown.

I went shopping in my stash and found this.  That's more like it, but it seems to draw the eye too much. 

This was another piece from my stash, a Heather Ross print, and this one seems just right - harmonious and modern.

I hope to get all 16 lanterns done by the end of tomorrow.