Hand Piecing the Centre Compass

In my last post I showed how I prepare my pieces for hand piecing using freezer paper templates. Here I will demonstrate how I sew these together.

Leave the FP on your fabrics until you are ready to sew them, have all the pieces for your block pinned wrong side up on a piece of flannel or a covered board as I have. This keeps everything organised.

Pick the first two pieces to be joined and remove FP, place a pin at the seam intersections and stitch between the seam allowances using a running stitch. I load 5-6 stitches on my needle, pull through and then take a backstitch. It is important with hand piecing not to sew into the seam allowances.

Before you break the thread, check if you can add another piece to the second side of your shape.

Make 1/4 sections, lay the pieces joined back down in their correct position until you need them again

and then join these to form the compass outer ring - leave the last seam open, this will allow you to piece the centre circle more easily

I chose to fussy cut my centre rather than make 4 sections. Use the temple to mark match points within the seam allowance, so you can accurately add the centre circle

When you have finished piecing, your compass will look like this - don't panic :)

Very carefully press the seams from the back in a radiating manner, start at the outside edge and work in - you should be lifting and lowering the iron - Press don't Iron and NO steam!

The finished block

and the back