Sewing a quilt top is accomplished by putting fabric together, a piece at a time, called "piecing". Quilts are pieces of fabric arranged in a variety of ways, many designs hundreds of years old. Piecing is also very geometric, with basic shapes of triangles, squares, and rectangles, creating hundreds of designs. Paper piecing allows you to work with very small pieces, giving you more flexibility in design.

Piecing a quilt top can be done by hand or machine and you will find devotees of both methods. Quilting by hand is very relaxing, and some quilters are purists, determined to quilt like our grandmothers. With Isaac Singer and his new machine, women jumped at the chance to speed up the process of making utilitarian quilts using machine sewing. Quilt tops still had many traditional designs, but women were able to create the quilts quicker.

Piecing starts with color choices and fabric design. If you work from a commercial pattern, then fabric choices are suggested for you. If you are designing your own top, then make decisions about your designs and let those guide your fabric choices. You need to select fabrics that will give you light, medium and dark choices.

The more your contrast in fabric, the better the effect of your design. If you want to go tonal with only one color, then look for values of the same color. If you want blue, go for a light blue, a medium blue, and then a darker blue. You can also vary your choices with prints and solids, creating additional texture.

Pieced blocks require extremely careful cutting to be accurate. You can use a rotary cutting system or use cardboard or plastic templates. Whatever you use, accuracy is the key. Start with a ruler and always allow for a one-quarter inch seam allowance for each of your pieces. A four-inch square needs to be cut at four and one-half inches all the way around the perimeter of the block in order to allow for seam allowance. Read your directions carefully!! Some patterns have the seam allowance built in to the size of the pieces you cut, and some don't. If you are doing paper piecing, then the guesswork of measuring is eliminated. Check for your particular pattern.

You can do simple square blocks that you piece together, alternating colors for an overall design. You can do a four-patch block, which is four different pieces of fabric that make one larger block, allowing you more geometric design within each block. The nine-patch takes a basic square made up of nine individual pieces, three to each row. Once again, lots of design elements available for you. Combining squares and triangles allow you to create some of the popular star patterns. Decide what will work best for your skills and your color choices.

Once you have your fabrics, pretreat them. Wash your fabrics to eliminate the commercial chemicals, particularly formaldehyde, added to keep fabrics looking fresh and crisp. Then determine how you will cut individual pieces. Watch for the bias of the fabric: bias stretches and will get pieces out of shape if you are not careful. In particular, if you are just beginning, don't cut right triangles so the longest side (hypoteneuse) is on the bias.

A flannel board by your sewing machine will help you lay out a block in the order you sew it. Most patterns will give you suggestions for sewing order. if you are designing yourself, look to put smaller unit pieces together, like a row at a time, and then put larger units together, like the rows that make up a completed block.

Make decisions about pressing. For a top to lay flat and look good, you need to press as you go along. Perhaps the most important is pressing a seam to lock it into place. This means just pressing the seam as it is sewn. Then you can decide if you want seams opened and pressed flat, or a seam pressed to one side.

Piecing a top, whether by hand or machine, gives you a satisfying feeling of watching tiny pieces grow into a wonderful whole design.

Related : More Quilting Techniques - Paper Piecing - English Paper Piecing