A few weeks back Sylvia of Flying Parrot Quilts contacted me with her idea to do a quilt along for a quilt she made using a mash up of a bunch of Halloween themed patterns. She calls it the Epic Halloween Quilt. You can see a photo of it here.

Each week she talks about a different pattern, either free or paid, that fits in the quilt. Like a puzzle piece.

This week is my Ring of Coffins pattern with Heidi Kenney’s Occupied Coffin add on (that’s included)

For anyone out there that hasn’t worked with English Paper Piecing / EPP, where it needs to be basted straight, I’m here to help! Just Keep Reading…

For the Epic Halloween Quilt Along, make sure to print the pattern at 85% to help it fit on the block!

How to Make a Custom Fussy Cutting Template:

For my block, I will be making eight solid coffins and eight occupied coffins. However you could do whatever configuration you want. Just make sure to print out enough templates pieces!

I like to print my EPP Templates on 68lb cardstock, and my Occupied Coffins Foundation Paper Piecing template on everyday copy paper. For this tutorial, I am also using a small piece of Heavy Duty Template Plastic.

The first step is to trace to basic coffin template on to the plastic, using a sharpie marker. I also labeled it, so I know it is the 85% smaller coffin.

Next I go and center the Occupied Coffins window in the Basic Coffin shape and trace that too.

I then cut out the entire thing using my “anything” scissors. This plastic is thick, so don’t use your nice fabric scissors. You don’t have to cut out the window, I just like the extra visibility.

Now that the fussy cutting template is ready to go, here are two ways to use it…

Using the Fussy Cutting Template to Make a Solid Coffin Block:

You don’t always need to center pieces that are just blender fabrics, but if you’re like me, and you want straight blocks, this is one of many ways it cane be done.

If your fabric is printed on a light base fabric, you can use a disappearing ink pen to trace the template on to the back of the fabric itself. Make sure to leave room around template, because you’ll need that in the next step.

Cut about 1/4″ to 1/2″ all the way around the traced lines. The seam allowance all depends on your personal basting preferences.

Next take one of your cut out solid cardstock coffin templates, and your choice of clips (I like the jumbo Wonder Clips by Clover) and line it up with the traced line and secure it temporarily.

Now here is where you may go “but that’s not how I baste EPP”, and I get that a lot. “There are many ways to skin a cat”, and there are many ways to baste English Paper Piecing templates. This just happens to be my personal choice. If it isn’t yours, skip this and the next step.

I tie a knot at the end of my thread and I do two large basting stitches to keep the coffin secure and in place. I don’t take the clips off yet.

Using the same thread, I then continue to baste around the edges by going through the paper. Again, it’s a personal preference. You could glue baster yours, or baste only the fabric around the coffin. All up to you!

This is how my finished basic coffin looks. See how the lines are all straight on the bottom? It’s all; because I went that next step and lined it all up! Sometimes it’s just worth it.

Next up…

Using the Fussy Cutting Template to Make a Occupied Coffin Block:

So using the template for the Occupied Coffin is a bit different. At first I use the inside window to pick out the best cuts for the window of the coffin. I then use the outside edge of the template as my cutting guide. I added a 1/2″ underneath the window ledge too.

I then just add that to the center block of the pattern and piece it normally. It’s just nice getting that perfectly centered block without guessing.

I’m not going to get in to how to do Foundation Paper piecing, because I don’t want to make this post too long, BUT if you have questions about this particular pattern, please just email me.

Above is after I centered the fussy cut block and then pieced all the other pieces all around it. I haven’t trimmed it yet, and I want you to read the next step before you do so too.

If you are making these blocks as part of the Quilt Along, and you shrunk the pattern 85%, then you’ll need to account for it. I would trim the edges of the Occupied Coffin 1/8″ or 1/4″ away from the original edge. I chose 1/8″, but it all depends on how much fabric you like to work with when basting.

Once your Occupied Coffin is all trimmed and nice looking, Take your template and match up the window you just stitched up. Keep it in place and trace around the edge. I used a dark chambray as my coffin fabric, and ended up using a yellow dressmakers chalk. If you are sewing with lighter fabric, you can use the disappearing ink again. Whatever works for you!

You can see my traced lines here.

Now, just like with the basic coffin, using your choice or clips go ahead and center the card stock piece and baste it on using your preferred method.

I used a bulkier fabric, so I had to do a bunch of tiny stitches to keep it all in place. Especially around the corners. As you can see though, the little window is perfectly centered and it wasn’t that hard at all!

Just continue whichever steps you need to to complete all 16 coffins needed for the ring.

If you would like to hear about how I piece together all the coffins and attach them to the backing fabric, then please stop back by next week to see more.

In the meantime make sure to check out the #epichalloweenqal hashtag on InstaGram to see everyone else’s progress on their quilts. It all looks so amazing. If you make yourself a ring of coffins, please use the #ringofcoffins and #artschooldropoutpatterns hashtag so I can go look at them too!!

About two months ago I was contacted by the lovely people over at Andover Fabrics with an idea they had for a rainbow wall of mini quilts at QuiltCon this year. They would send me the fabric in a specific colorway and I would send them a mini quilt to hang in their booth during the event. I have been very sick, and haven’t had the energy to finish anything large, but I figured I could hand sew most of the mini so I said “yes!”

They sent me the gorgeous bundle of blue and white fabric shown above, which arrived right at the beginning of the blizzard we had. The majority of the fat quarters were either by Lizzy House or Alison Glass. The rest was from various other lines with Andover (I really should look in to them because they were all beautiful).

I decided to hand sew this mini using the technique called English Paper Piecing. I’ve talked about it loads on here before, but usually I just sew hexagons. I’ve been branching out in to other shapes lately and I’m just dying to show you all where it’s taken me. This piece of course being the first one. It took me about a week and a half to baste and piece, and then one day to matchstick quilt.

As you can see if this photo, I tried something new and did matchstick quilting (super close quilting) in various directions to kind of break up the design a bit. I also quilted to middle in a grid pattern to separate it from the rest of the design.

The finished piece ended up being 18″ across, and I am over the moon happy with how this piece turned out! I really can’t wait to mess with this idea a bit more. Would anyone be interested in a pattern? I number all the pieces and have a legend already to go, since that’s the way I work.

Added Bonus: Here’s a shot of my mini surrounded by all of the other pieces made for their booth!! (photo by @giucy_giuce on IG . One of the faces behind this project btw) How gorgeous are they?!? I feel so honored to be included in this group full of peers and friends. I really wish i could of been there to see it all in person, byt that just wasn’t in the cards this year. Next year however I WILL be there,no matter what!

There’s a process called English Paper Piecing,  EPP or Foundation Piecing (it gos by any of these names), where you take the pattern you want to make and have the pieces cut out of paper. You then cut out fabric larger than each piece, pin the paper to it, fold over the fabric and baste stitch (like my orange stitches shown in all of these photos). When you have enough pieces for your project or block, you then whip stitch them all together and take out the paper pieces. After all of this tedious work, you have yourself a quilt top.

There are loads of proper tutorials all over the internet. Heidi posted a tutorial and template for mini hexies this past week, and there’s a bunch on Pinterest. Plus if you search YouTube, I bet you’ll find some great instructions. Also, if you just want to start small but have an even bigger impact you could try something like Rebecca’s patchwork tote bag! (her IG feed totally made me want to start this project!)

This type of project is perfect for downtime, like watching TV, waiting at the DMV or when being a passenger on a road trip. I myself started it because I am being forced to rest a bit more. Plus it’s a quilt that I don’t have to sit at a sewing machine all day to make. My poor back needs a break from that.

I will admit now, I am NOT a strong hand sewer, and I am seriously not looking forward to whip stitching all of these together. For now I try not to think about it and just dream of what the finished quilt will look like… If I ever finish it!

I want to make a 70″ square lap quilt, and by my calculations, it is going to take 800+ hexagons to make. That’s a lot! I am able to finish around 30 a night, so if I work on it every night then it will take me a month. That’s a scary number to me btw, so I may just call it quits at 400 because I am also dreaming up a quilt that is just half hexies and the rest is solid colored gray. I guess I’ll decided when I get to the halfway point.

I’m happy I went with the 3″ size too! Because if I had done the normal 1″ size, it would have taken 2500+ hexies to finish a quilt. SCARY!!

Have any of you made one of these? Or are making one? Any helpful hints?