It is a long time since I fell in love with English paper piecing, indeed for a long time I thought it was the only form of patchwork in existence. Hand stitch the fabrics over papers, stitch the papers together, five years later a cot quilt still isn't ready for the baby who is now about to start school and dare I say, this one still isn't finished for the baby who is now thirty-five....
But I have at least finished this tiny postcard-sized piece (each hexagon not much bigger than a 5p piece) which has gone to a lovely friend for her birthday today.
It is rare that I write about a patchwork book here. I have hundreds of them, accumulated over years of stitching and the years of running a quilt shop, when Bookhound suggested I keep one copy of every book we stocked. Surprisingly (for me) I couldn’t see the point at the time, but I did keep them and how grateful I am for the idea, because I now have a wonderful archive of patterns and inspiration from the 1980s when patchwork and quilting was finding its place in people’s hearts again after an extended sojourn out on the margins.
I buy very few patchwork books now (apart from those by Di Ford, Yoko Saito ) so it was a lovely surprise when an advanced copy of English Paper Piecing by Florence Knapp (who blogs as Flossie Teacakes) arrived. It had actually been sent to the Kayaker because he had given permission for one of his images to be used; this one of Tracy Chevalier during our conversation at Port Eliot Festival a few years ago.
Needless to say the book rapidly found its way into the right hands...mine.
To my knowledge, books on English paper piecing have been in the minority, though a few have surfaced in recent years thanks to a resurgence in what many have always considered a bit of a time-consuming route to a quilt when you can knock one up on a sewing machine in a day. But Florence Knapp’s book is in the minority in other ways too. English Paper Piecing is not just a ‘How-to’ book, it is something far better than that, it is an intelligent, fully referenced, evidence-based examination of the benefits of mindful sewing. It is a ‘Why-to’ book too and one I have read and re-read, cover-to-cover, several times already.
Now, those of us that do it are fully aware of the benefits. We’ve known it since the day we started sewing. That it is calming and soothing, that we can disappear into a project for hours, forget the world and emerge blinking into the daylight, hours later, barely remembering what day it is, but it it is still fascinating to discover that research now backs up those experiences.
Florence Knapp, in a series of essays, presents and examines the evidence cogently and convincingly. I was fascinated by the research on Flow. This is the total involvement in a project that leaves few if any of the brain’s resources free to worry about other things, Evidence shows that hand sewing, of all the crafts, reduces blood pressure and heart rate and increases serotonin levels the most. Flow can be the key to human happiness, creating order in chaos and providing comfort at difficult times. And an interesting quote from psychologist Loretta Breuning resonated...
’We are hard-wired to care about the legacy we leave and that doing so increases our happiness.’
I have summarised briefly, but Florence offers deeper insights in her series of essays, as well as addressing, in some detail, the struggles, the self-criticism, finding motivation and embracing imperfections that many of us may have faced up to in our stitching lives. There are essays on Fine Cell Work, Tracy Chevalier, Lucy Boston (remembering my trip to meet Diana Boston at Hemingford Grey) along with interviews with a series of quilters, before the ‘How to’ section of the book which I walked into feeling calm and ready to learn. The fact that I have been English paper piecing all my sewing life made no difference, there are always new things to discover and I had immediately ordered the recommended Clover Dome Needle Case, which you load with ten needles, ready-threaded for stitching on the move (don't ask me how it works but it does) and which seems like a genius invention to me.
Safe storage of needles, making what Florence calls the 'inherent portability' of English paper piecing a much easier prospect. I can't be the only one who has tried to thread a needle in a moving car/train and given up.
I have also been delighted with the Straw (Milliner's) needles recommended for EPP, and then there’s the polyester thread...
POLYESTER THREAD!! ME??
How can this be...
Where did my aversion for it come from?
Was cotton an entrenched state of mind, something about being an old-fashioned purist...
Weren’t dire warnings issued about polyester thread making mincemeat of the fabric over the course of time...
About never using it in your sewing machine because the machine would die a slow, tortuous and painful death and be irretrievably damaged...
Didn’t it used to dissolve at the mere sight of a hot iron for pressing...
Truthfully, polyester thread was the spawn of the devil, but times and attitudes, and the thread itself, have changed. I can still hardly believe that I have crossed to the dark side and bought a reel of grey Superior Threads ‘Bottom Line’ for hand-Piecing because Florence said to.
I’ve had my moments with it I can tell you. I’ve had to adjust the way I hold thread in tension because it cuts into my little finger, and I was grateful for Florence’s nifty idea about knotting it at the eye of the needle to stop it slipping and un-threading. But I have to confess that it sews like a dream...small stitches that sink invisibly into the seam and it never ever knots, and these John James straw (milliners) needles, just slightly longer than the average are a revelation.
Is anyone else still doing English paper piecing...
Does the theory of Flow resonate with you...
Has anyone else still not finished something thirty-five years later...
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