Pies and Tarts Quilt - English Paper Piecing

Pies and Tart Quilt

Along with piecing my Easy Street Mystery Quilt over the holidays, I have also managed to complete the quilt top for my Pies and Tarts quilt.  This has been a hand piecing project for the past few years, started in February 2011.  The last few bits should have only taken about half a day to do, but Easy Street has rather taken over. When you are hand piecing, completing the top is a major milestone, so I thought I would share this with you.

I was also trying to use my stash and create a scrappy quilt, so I made up some slightly larger cardboard pies and tarts templates from cereal packets, adding on for the seam allowance, for the pies and smaller tarts to draw around for my fabric shapes.  I did a whole 'Pie' and some different sized slices to accommodate some fussy cutting and to use smaller scraps.  I found that a 5" charm square was the perfect size to fit the fabric template for a 'tart'.  As a result of all this circular cutting, a quick sift through my current stash will find fat quarters with awkward round holes in them - no neat strips for this project!

Because I only had a limited number of paper patchwork templates, I tended to cut the fabric in batches, pairing up colour schemes for each circle as I went along.  With a little bag of paper templates, some colourful fabrics scraps, and a needle and cotton, I was on my way.  It travelled with me everywhere, and gradually the Pies and Tarts quilt accumulated.  There are a variety of textured background navy fabrics used in this quilt.


Pies and Tarts Quilt Detail

The construction of each block roughly went a bit like this
1. Tack fabric around paper templates
2. Select two sets of four coordinating 'slices'
3. Sew up four pairs of the two colours, overstitching them together
4. Sew the four pairs to make a circle or 'pie'
4. Press the completed circle to ensure a smooth circular edge
5. Applique circle onto a 8" square of navy fabric, removing paper templates as you go.



Pies and Tarts Quilt Top Completed

It was only once four blocks were pieced together (by hand, of course!) that it was possible to apply the smaller tart in the middle.  With the verticals and horizontals of the blocks, it was easy to place the circles in the same direction, which adds a diagonal pattern to the whole quilt as well.  I have added half circles to the edge, and to finish the edge I will be adding a very narrow navy border.

At this stage I am joining up with Finish It Up Friday  and HeLP for Hexiaholics - the next stage is to put it away for a while whilst I decide on the quilting pattern I will use, and it waits its turn to be hand quilted ....