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Land of Magic Quilt Sew Along: The Castle

Blog Hopping Disney Disneyland Foundation Piecing Glue Basting Paper Piecing Piecing Tips & Tricks Tutorial

September 20, 2016 2 Comments

Land of Magic Quilt Sew Along: The Castle

Welcome! I'm so happy that you've come to visit my stop on Kerry Goulder's (Kid Giddy) sew-along for her new Land of Magic Quilt. I was given the privilege of making the Castle portion of the full quilt and I absolutely loved making the pattern. The Castle is very versatile and can be made in many inspired ways. Take a look at Kerry's blog to see how several versions of the Castle block, including a sand castle version. Plus there's an amazing giveaway featuring Aurifil thread.

I am a huge Disney fan and Sleeping Beauty is my favorite Disney movie, which was the inspiration for my own Castle block. My block represents a bit of Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland, with it's stone blocks that rise into pink tinted towers with blue tiled roofs and a golden flag, as the cherry on top. I had the most fun fussy cutting sweet little children for the windows of the Castle. Kerry has some wonderful tips and suggestions for fussy cutting in her Land of Magic Sew Along post for the Crown block.

Kerry suggested that I embellish or do something to make the Castle "my own". As I was looking at pictures from my past visits to The Happiest Place on Earth, I paid special attention to Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

Image by Cristy Fincher

The arches gilded in gold inspired me to alter the top of one tower. So, I sketched out my idea on a printed copy of Kerry's pattern then made copies of that sketch so I could work out how to paper piece it.

Once I figured out how to paper piece it, I did a "test" to see if it would work (hence, making copies of the sketch ;) ). I was over the moon happy with how my gilded arches came to life!

Paper piecing was one of the first things I learned, after hand piecing, when I began to quilt. I fell in love with it and it's versatility. Like most paper piecers, I have a love/hate relationship with tearing out the papers. That's one reason I love Paperless Paper Piecing, which is an alternative to traditional paper piecing. I find myself using both techniques, depending on the pattern. It's really fantastic to have more techniques in your quilting tool box!

I prepare my paper piecing a little differently than most, and I'd love to share my method with you. I hope that you find it helpful and give it a try.

1. Collect all of your supplies. I glue baste most of my piecing, including paper piecing. Find out more about glue basting {here}.

2. Dab a bit of a glue stick to the back side of your template. The glue stick will keep the fabric in place. Use a light table, if needed, to place your fabric.

3. Then fold back the template and fabric to the line between piece #1 and #2. Make a nice crease with your finger nail, or other tool (a hera marker works great, too).

4. Unfold to expose the crease. This crease is your sewing line. This little trick will also help you be sure that your fabric is in the right place, if you don't have a light table.

5. Then draw a line of glue with the Micro Fine Glue Tips and Elmer's Washable School glue just above the crease, toward the seam allowance.

6. Next, place the fabric for piece #2 in it's place and heat set the glue with a hot, dry iron. Now, your fabric won't shift at the sewing machine, and there's no pins to pull out! If you're new to glue basting, don't worry, the glue washes out. And the heat setting dries the glue completely, so your needle never gets gummed up.

7. Sew, trim and press as usual.

Another wonderful way to use glue basting with paper piecing is prepping multiple pieces on one template at a time - YES! It's true!!

In this image, you can see that pieces #4 and #5 are sewn on each end of the template. The key here is that they DON'T intersect each other. Make a crease along the sewing line for both pieces.

Then, draw a fine line of glue on the seam allowance, near the crease.

Place fabric #4, and heat set.

Repeat for piece #5.

And sew! My biggest tip here is to be sure that you pull fabric piece #5 out of the way as you sew piece #4, just to be sure that you don't sew through it as well.

Then press and trim as usual. This method can really help speed up your paper piecing, and reduce those silly mistakes that we all make.

When it came time to sewing the units together, glue basting was the only way to go. It helps me line up intersecting seams, and prevents that pesky shifting that paper piecing is known for - and all without a single pin. These 8 points came together beautifully with glue basting:

Thank you SEW much for joining me on my stop for Kerry's Land of Magic Sew-Along. Be sure to head back over to Kerry's blog for a chance to enter her big giveaway. You can find the Land of Magic Quilt pattern in Kerry's Etsy store as well as at Fat Quarter Shop, who also has quilt kits available with the new Magic fabric by Sarah Jane Studios.

Thank you for joining me!! I love reading and responding to your comments, so feel free to share some love.

Happy Quilting,
~Cristy