Perpetual Spring English Paper Piecing

I've found that I tend to share mainly dressmaking projects for a couple of reasons. The first being that dressmaking is definitely my favourite creative outlet and the second being that it's so much quicker than a lot of other types of sewing. However, there is one other type of sewing that I also love: English Paper Piecing. Because EPP projects are finished so much more rarely than dressmaking projects (perhaps two finished items a year as opposed to two a month) I never really got into the habit of writing about them. I considered not writing about this one at all due to the fact that it has been finished since 2016. 2016! For 2.5 years it has been completely finished yet I only just got round to actually taking photos of it. So writing about it now seemed slightly pointless. However, it's not only one of my favourite things but also one of my proudest things I have ever made so I decided that it warranted a blog post nevertheless.

I started EPP in December 2015 having aboslutely no clue how to do it but finding that it quickly became the perfect evening passtime for me. As with much of my sewing I was inspired by Florence whose English paper piecing projects are incredible. Shortly after my first couple of projects I decided to launch into a long term project (which in hindsight was far too ambitious!) as it was around this time that Florence released her Perpetual Spring EPP pattern and immediately wanted to make it. As you can see I not only made her pattern but I also copied her colour scheme - her version just looked so lovely and the pattern reminds me of daffodils.

I started this project in March of 2016 with the aim of giving it to my Mum for Christmas. I'm quite impressed with myself for managing to make it in 9 months! I also managed to keep it a secret from her for that duration, I believe she knew about the colour scheme and the fact that it was English paper pieced but had no idea what the final outcome would look like. I loved being able to give it to her after all that work! I left the framing down to my Mum who I think framed it perfectly. Despite being unframed for quite some time as an addition to all the months it took to make the finished piece is now up in our living room. While yellow isn't maybe the most obvious colour choice I really love it and although I technically made it for my Mum, the fact that it's in the living room means that I get to enjoy it too!

In making this I discovered that I really love having a big EPP project on the go. Since finishing this I've only really made small EPP projects but I found that I missed having a large project too much and started another a couple of months ago which is perhaps even more ambitious than this one was - I'm hoping to write a bit more about that soon. I can't believe how long it took me to write a blog post about this but I'm glad that I have now, as I said it's one of my favourite and proudest makes ever and that still stands 2.5 years on.