Peace Dove Foundation Pieced Quilt Design

Though my Tuesday Improv Block group I heard that until March 18, Tamara Kate Design was selling her Peace Dove Mini Quilt Pattern to raise funds for the Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Appeal through the Canadian Red Cross. The Canadian Red Cross was matching any donations they received which was awesome. I thought this was an awesome, win-win way to support folks in Ukraine.

While the pattern is great, I have to say that foundation piecing is not my forte! If you’ve never done foundation piecing, the sections of the pattern are printed on a series of printer size pieces of paper which have outlines of each patch and the order with which they are to be sewed. The fabric is placed on the underside of the piece of paper, flipped away from the section to be covered and stitched down through the lines printed on the top side of the paper. The finished block will be the mirror image of the design printed on the paper. Essentially it means working backwards and upside down! But it does make a perfect block and some folks will only piece this way.

I can foundation piece. I’ve even designed some foundation pieced patterns. The Castel St. Angelo in Rome, far left block on the wall hanging on my February 24, 2014 post, and the castle in Homburg, Germany, top row, far left block in the {Big} City Girl Quilt are my foundation patterns. But I still find it challenging to do foundation piecing.

Peace Dove, is probably the hardest quilt I’ve even pieced. Despite the excellent pattern, I did a lot of “un-sewing” in order to make it perfect. If you make this pattern, here are some tips from my experience.

• Use a light box to place the pieces of fabric on the under side of the paper pattern. While I often have used light in a window to do this, this pattern is complex and I found the light box was essential.

• Using special paper for foundation piecing which is semi-transparent would be really helpful. I just used copy paper which worked, but it was hard to see through it at times, even with the light box.

• The pattern calls for 1/2 yard of fabric for the background. And yes, that is just enough. I had 20 inches, but it came from deep in my stash so there was no hope of getting any more if I rand out. Half way through I was convinced I wasn’t going to have enough fabric, so I started adding other teal fabrics. It turned out I would have had enough fabric, but it would have been really tight. I’d recommend having 3/4 yard of background fabric which will give you plenty…even if you make some cutting errors.

• When sewing the sections of pattern with the branch, line them up carefully. Place a straight pin through the seam lines on both papers to check if the 2 sections of the branch match perfectly. If all looks good, sew just an inch of the seam where the branch connects. Stop and check to see if the sections align perfectly when sewn. If not, just unpick that 1 inch of stitching and try again. Once you know the branch is matched, finish sewing the whole seam. It’s a lot easier to unpick and inch than 8-10 inches of tiny stitches!

• Have fun and give yourself lots of time to sew this pattern together. It probably took me about 18-20 hours to complete. But then that may be because I don’t find foundation piecing intuitive!

Even though this was a complicated quilt, I’m delighted with the finished piece. This quilted hanging is going to my church to be a pulpit hanging which the pastor plans to use during “Ordinary Time”, the many weeks in the church liturgy that stretch from the end of Pentecost in the Spring to the beginning of Advent before Christmas.

But Peace shouldn’t be limited to a season. It is something we need everyday of the year.