Paper-piecing seemed tedious and confusing before I began this project. I had an idea in my mind and the only way to create it seemed to be paper-piecing which I had never done before! After watching a few tutorials and piecing a few cranes, I came up with a method that worked for me.
My first idea was to quilt the pillow cover entirely by hand to resemble Japanese sashiko. I ordered some custom hand-dyed floss from Cymberfloss in France. It turned out gorgeous and the colours matched perfectly! My embroidery went much slower than expected as I was forced take it one stitch at a time. Pulling a few running stitches through several layers of linen and batting proved impossible.
I will be freemotion quilting the rest of the pillow cover in the same colour as the linen so that the focus of the quilt remains on the cranes.
I am also in the process of making a lap quilt with seven crane stars. That's a total of 42 paper-pieced cranes! Percy Persimmon is helping me pick fabrics that look like origami paper. I think he's doing a great job!
I'm hoping to use some of this beautiful hand-dyed floss by Nell's Embroidery in North Vancouver.
My husband Sota is from Japan. His family lives inland and were luckily safe but the news was still devastating for all of us. He started Crane for a Dollar to teach school children to support, sympathize and come together as a community by folding origami cranes to raise funds for Japan. If your child's school is interested in folding 1000 cranes or want to find out more, please click on the postcard :o)
After seeing all the folded cranes, I was inspired to design this paper-piecing pattern. Fourteen cranes finished and twenty-eight more to sew... and then the PDF pattern booklet will be on its way!
